NEWARK, NJ—Lamar Kearse, a guard who won three consecutive New York State Class A championships at Jamesville-DeWitt High School near Syracuse, will continue his education and basketball career at NJIT, men's basketball coach Jim Engles announced.
Kearse, 6-2, 185, emerged as a go-to star in his senior year of high school, averaging 18.7 points, five rebounds, and five assists per game on a team that finished 25-1.
“Lamar is a talented combo guard who can score the ball,” said Engles of his recruit. “He's good from three (point range) and he's tough and physical enough to get the ball in the lane and finish. He has a very good feel for how to play. Even when he's not scoring, he does the things that need to be done.”
Playing at Jamesville-DeWitt under coach Bob McKenney, Kearse was a solid contributor on two state championship teams, but was not the star on those state champions his sophomore and junior years. That was due largely to the presence of teammates Brandon Triche (J-DHS Class of '09; started 35 games for Syracuse in '09-'10) and Alshwan Hymes (J-DHS Class of '09; part-time starter for Division I Canisius in '09-'10).
"He would have been able to be our leader as a sophomore if we didn't have Brandon," McKenney told MaxPreps.com. "We would have put the ball in Mar-Mar's hands, we were that confident in what he could do. As a junior he was ready to be a primary guard for almost anybody, but we were fortunate to have both Brandon and Alshwan, great players. He was willing to sacrifice a little bit to do the right thing for the team."
With Triche and Hymes having moved on to college for 2009-10, Jamesville-DeWitt continued its championship tradition and Kearse, the orchestrator and top outside threat, earned All-Central New York first-team honors in the Syracuse Post-Standard, as well as All-State second-team honors in Class A from the New York State Sportswriters Association.
He scored 17 points in his team's win over Newark (NY) in the Class A New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship game. Kearse followed that with 23 points in the Federation Class A semifinal win over New York City Public Schools champion Bedford Academy and he reached double-figure scoring in 25 of 26 games, topping 20 points eight times, with a high of 28 against East Syracuse-Minoa HS on January 21.
Kearse was named to the New York State Federation all-tournament team in both his junior and senior years. His latest basketball honor was Most Valuable Player of the 2010 Zebra Classic, a multi-day postseason all-star tournament.
In addition to basketball, Kearse was an all-league football player for two years as an all-around two-way player who saw action at wide receiver, quarterback, and running back on offense and in the defensive backfield.
Kearse, whose cousin, Lazarus Sims, starred at Syracuse in the 1990's and is now Coordinator of Player Development for the Orange under Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim, is undecided as to his major at NJIT.
At NJIT, Lamar Kearse will help fortify a rising program.
The Highlanders, who first faced Division I competition in 2006-07 and achieved full Division I status in 2009-10, are coming off of a season that saw them post a program-best 10 wins at the highest level.
The Highlanders, who will enter their third year under Engles, hope to continue the improvement they showed in 2009-10, when they won 10 times, up from one win in 2008-09, and stepped up their scoring to 61.5 ppg to 49.5 ppg.
Kearse and the other 2010-11 newcomers will join returning players who accounted for 1710 of last season's 1905 points scored (90 percent). Returnees for 2010-11 also accounted for 882 of last season's 1064 rebounds (83 percent).
