Every other week during the winter, Christ the King’s Isaiah Lewis, one of the nation’s top junior guards, takes us with him on his journey for a city and state Federation championship. In this exclusive diary for NYPost.com, the multi-talented 6-foot-3 Lewis talks about his team’s wild NBA-style road trip, as told to Marc Raimondi.
We don’t want to admit it and coach [Joe Arbitello] would never admit it, but man we were exhausted [Monday in a 88-50 loss to nationally ranked Mater Dei]. We were playing our fourth game in five days in two different states and then they were pressing, things like that. It was crazy. They had five guys who are potentially Division I players.
Me and [UConn-bound teammate] Omar [Calhoun] took a lot of heat. We’re both nationally ranked players. It kind of felt embarrassing. [Tuesday] in school guys were coming up to us getting on us. We’re just gonna use it as motivation. We’re definitely gonna bounce back. We’re gonna win the state, we’re gonna win the city. I’m saying that right now.
I told [coach] probably the way he [made the schedule] was hard on us. But I told him I’ll do it next year again if I had to. I think kind of the way it was, going state to state was tough. We flew from Missouri [at the Bass Pro Shops Tournament of Champions] to Boston [for the HoopHall Classic]. We really didn’t get that much sleep. That kind of affected us. But we’re gonna bounce back.
We already started [Tuesday] night, [beating Holy Cross]. I think it’s a big win for us. (Lewis had 12 points and five rebounds.) For a Tuesday night game, the crowd was intense. Me and Omar, we had a talk today in school. We didn’t want to use the [schedule as] excuses. Our coach told us that on ESPN guys were making excuses for me and Omar. We just want to come out and play. We’ve got aspirations to play in the NBA and as you see they’re [playing] back-to-back [days]. We were just glad to get this one and we’ll come out on Friday and try to beat Molloy.
There’s some news with my recruiting. Florida State offered me. I’m going to go down there and visit, but I don’t know when yet. I’m also seeing if I can work out a visit to Memphis. But my dad talks to coach [Leonard] Hamilton [at Florida State] a lot and we love the weather down there a lot compared to New York. That might be a factor.
Check back with Isaiah Lewis every other Wednesday during the season. His next diary will run Feb. 1.