Following the Jordan Brand Classic Regional All-Star game, the city’s best prospects were retelling their meeting with Kevin Durant, the Seattle SuperSonics rookie, bragging even about the encounter. Ryan Pearson, Christ the King’s star senior, rolled his eyes.
“I don’t get star struck,” the 6-foot-6 southpaw said.
This was shortly after yet another impressive performance in a year full of them for Pearson, a splendid 36-point, 15-rebound showing for the city team in his second appearance at Madison Square Garden (in 2007, he played there with Christ the King in the Super Six Invitational). It was an apt cap to his high school career, a perfect way to end one of the biggest improvements in one season.
Pearson, who averaged 23.2 points per game for the Royals, leading them to their third consecutive CHSAA Class AA city championship berth, wasn’t a bench warmer or a sub as a junior, but nobody could’ve predicted he would be one of a select few selected for this game, either. He was a role player on the 2007 city championship club, a complementary part. He scored his points by picking up loose change, crashing the offensive board or running the court.
That changed his senior season. He started the league season off by dropping in 40 points at St. Raymond, the Bronx power. He had other trademark performances, including the 35 points he put on Holy Cross while battling a stomach virus, a game he pushed into overtime with a 3-pointer off the glass at the buzzer through traffic, a shot his coach, Bob Oliva, dubbed “The Christian Laettner shot in reverse.”
“We always talk about it,” Holy Cross point guard Blaise Ffrench said. “I tell him it’s luck, but he said it was skill.”
Pearson’s mother, Leslie, said her son always worked hard at basketball, from the time he shot up a foot in the span of 18 months, between 2001 and 2002, and his uncle, Rodney Pearson, took him to the Law Tournament in Brooklyn. It was why he received a late call-up to the varsity his sophomore season.
He truly dedicated himself, Leslie said, following last season. When he was not working out or traveling with his AAU team, he was down the block from their home in the Redfern section of Far Rockaway, at Inwood Park, from sunrise to sunset.
“He’d go out there with the older men, let them push him around, and that’s what made him tougher,” she said. “That really boosted his courage to do more this year. He wanted to show people he really had that basketball fever in him, and this year he brought it out.”
“Once I set my mind on doing something, I complete [the task],” Pearson said. “I don’t see anything else on the outside. I go straight to it.”
Christ the King assistant coach Artie Cox saw that determination from the time Pearson joined the varsity. This season is when the outlandish numbers came, he said, but it was a steady climb, one that never tailed off.
“The yellow light,” Cox said, “turned green.”
At Cox’s behest, Pearson expanded his game over the summer, adding a 3-point shot and improved ball handling to his already impressive arsenal. He blistered opponents from all over the court, whether it was hitting jumpers, crashing the glass, dropping in soft runners or scoring in the post. Against the area’s top recruits, major Division I prospects, Pearson used his length to score in the paint and athleticism on the perimeter. It is why George Mason, Cox said, is getting a steal.
“His improvements have been exponential,” said talent evaluator Tom Konchalski, publisher of the High School Basketball Insider. “It’s rare a kid improves that much.”
A late bloomer but early signee, Pearson chose Jim Larranaga, the Archbishop Molloy graduate, and the Patriots – the same Patriots who galvanized the nation when they reached the Final Four in 2006 – after his first – and only – visit. At the time, only Atlantic 10 schools such as UMass, Fordham and Rhode Island were interested. By the middle of his senior year, however, he could have ascertained a Big East scholarship. Rutgers Coach Fred Hill, who attended several Christ the King games, once jokingly telling Pearson he wished he had not committed.
“He can play in the Big East, but he can be a terrific player there,” Konchalski said, referring to George Mason.
When Larranaga saw Pearson play, he was immediately taken with his versatility - his ability to score in different ways in addition to his length and large hands - and his exuberant personality on the court. But what really left a lasting impression was what others saw - or in this case, didn’t.
“When I saw him the play the thing I was surprised about was not how good he was, but how people evaluated him differently than we did,” Larranaga said. “We felt all along he was going to be a special player. We liked the whole package.”
Larranaga expects Pearson to be an “impact freshman,” in the Colonial Athletic Conference, to help fill the void left by the graduation of senior forward Will Thomas.
If Pearson improves enough at George Mason, he can play professionally, Konchalski said. Washington Wizards guard Antonio Daniels, who played under Larranaga at Bowling Green made the jump, so why not Pearson. Of course, that is a long way off, a discussion that will not yet begin for quite a while.
When asked why he was not in awe of Durant, the former Texas star, Pearson said he would “hopefully,” be playing alongside him one day. The only star that would make him nervous is Kobe Bryant. “But then I’ll see him a couple more times,” Pearson said, smiling, “and he’s an ordinary guy to me.”
