Cardozo’s newest talent comes from Down Under

Give Ron Naclerio a minute and he will list all the talented ballplayers who wanted to attend Cardozo but did not end up there.
The zany basketball coach, however, fails to mention the ones that did, the kids who happened to land in his gym for no particular reason.
Aussie Jarod Balcombe may be the latest one.
Before him, there was 6-foot-10 center Theus Davis from Toronto. Davis, like Balcombe, had an aunt who lived in Queens, and was looking for a way to land a Division I basketball scholarship. He helped the Judges reach the PSAL championship game in 2003. Just like Davis, Balcombe is an international recruit, but Perth, Western Australia is much further from Canada, halfway around the world.
“You do luck out once in a while,” Naclerio allowed, “when a kid you don’t know gets in.”
Australia’s loss is Cardozo’s gain.
Entering September, the Judges had a gaping 6-foot-7 hole in their frontcourt when senior-to-be James Southerland left the Oakland Gardens school for Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Balcombe knew nothing about the talented Southerland; he just wanted to play college basketball from the time he picked up a basketball at the age of eight.
“The good players would say ‘go to college’ and that sort of inspired me as a goal,” he said. “I wasn’t really sure what it was going to be like, but it’s no real shock to me.”
“I really like it,” he later added.
Originally, the agile 6-foot-6 forward was to attend famed and nationally ranked St. Anthony of Jersey City, New Jersey and play for Hall of Fame coach Bob Hurley. The commute from his Uncle Abraham’s home in St. Albans was too far and he was destined to be a practice player his first season.
Therefore, the 17-year-old Balcombe, with two years of high school eligibility remaining, did research. He looked up promising schools in the area and had his cousin, Brian, ask around. The name Ron Naclerio and Cardozo kept coming up on his searches so he chose the borough’s dominant public school program.
Balcombe visited America last February with the intent of getting the lay of the land. He has not had much trouble in his new country, aside from working through the accents and slang to adjusting to an earlier start time - 7:30 a.m. is his first class, as opposed to 9 a.m. in Australia.
His new teammates made Balcombe comfortable immediately. After watching him play, the bond grew.
“It’s definitely hard for him, but he’s doing well,” point guard Trinity Fields said. “When I first saw him [play], the first thing I said was ‘Wow.’ He can shoot from far, bring the ball up, rebound at will.”
Right away, Naclerio was given rave reviews of Balcombe and another big man enrolled in the school. He first saw the other fellow who, in Naclerio’s words, “couldn’t play a lick.”
Balcombe, to the coach’s delight, has enormous upside with vast room for improvement. For all his athleticism, scoring ability, and guard skills, the gritty New York City game is as new to him as March Madness.
Naclerio took him to I.S. 8, the infamous A.A.U. tournament, and Balcombe, nicknamed Crocodile Dundee by Naclerio, was amazed it was merely a local league. When he first arrived in Queens, Brian took him to a few streetball courts for pickup games. Again, physicality was the norm.
“That’s the first thing I noticed: ‘Dang, these guys are real physical,’” he recalled. “They play hard, they go 100 percent all the time.”
Balcombe admits his one weakness is lack of aggression. In Australia, fouls are meant to be avoided, and the talent pool regresses as the players get older. Naclerio saw that during one of their first practices. He did not fight for position in the paint against smaller players or step up when others drove the lane.
“I told him it’s okay on the court in New York City to get mean,” Naclerio said. “I’m hoping when we start to get into the borough and everybody wants to knock us on our behind, he’s one of the guys fighting back hard. Because if he’s fighting back hard then, by January, February he’ll be very good.”
“I’m excited,” Balcombe said. “I’m going to work real hard and try to help the team win some games, win a championship.”