NEWARK, NJ—Chris Flores, an explosive 6-foot-2 two guard from the Boston area, will be a member of the NJIT Highlanders basketball team beginning in 2009-10, head coach Jim Engles announced.
Flores, a 2008 graduate of John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics & Science in Roxbury, MA, has attended Marianapolis Preparatory School in Thompson, CT, this year, and he was a star player in both places.
He averaged 17 points per game this season in his postgraduate prep year at Marianapolis, including 35 points in a losing overtime effort in the 2009 New England Class B Prep final. His team finished the year 19-10 and Flores was named its Most Outstanding Player. “He has a big-game mentality,” said Jim Engles. “The bigger the game, the better he played.”
Although scouts first note his ability to get close to the basket, Flores also made 52 three-pointers with better than 40 percent accuracy in his year at Marianapolis Prep.
The internet site New England Recruiting Report rated Flores as the 18th-best prospect in Connecticut and 77th in New England following the 2008-09 season.
Playing for the West team in the New England Challenge prep school all-star game sponsored by the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA, in late March, Flores scored 14 points on 6-for-11 shooting.
His success this year came after a high school career in which he was one of the Boston area's top players. Flores was nominated for the 2008 McDonald's All-American game and he was a Boston Herald all-scholastic honoree when he was a senior at O'Bryant School of Math & Science, which he led to the Boston City League South Division title. New England Recruiting Report rated him 34th in Massachusetts following his senior year.
“Chris is very aggressive off the dribble and he finishes well in the lane,” Engles said. “But he's not just a scorer. He can shoot, too. He's also a physically tough kid who has a reputation as a good on-the-ball defender.”
NJIT is on track to become an active championship-eligible member of NCAA Division I late this summer and the Highlanders will begin play in the inaugural Great West Conference basketball season in 2009-10, as well. The new season, the first for Flores at NJIT, will open in mid-November.
