Maurice Harkless is hoping the next time he takes the court in the New York City will be a better showing in his mind than his last as a high-school player.
The former Forest Hills star and St. John’s University signee scored 18 points, grabbed seven rebounds and dished out four assists for Bedford YMCA in a disappointing, 70-66 loss to Positive Direction in the boys high school championship game at West 4th Saturday afternoon. Harkless still felt he could have done more even in a game where he did plenty. He felt he defended, but never found his shooting touch.
“Honestly I think I played terribly today,” the 6-foot-6, 200-pound former South Kent small forward said. “I blocked a lot of shots, but that’s about it. Nothing was dropping. It was horrible.”
Harkless was a key to Bedford YMCA, which included Hofstra-bound Moussa Kone and former Boys & Girls star Mike Taylor, taking a 60-48 lead with 5:25 left in the game. He fed Towson-bound Kelvin Amayo two straight times for layups with full court passes and capped the spurt with a two-handed slam of a Yunus Hopkins miss. Former Boys & Girls star Malik Nichols scored 37 points and led a 22-6 Positive Direction run to propel his team to the win.
“We thought we had control of the game, but you can never get too comfortable,” said Harkless, who earned the sportsmanship award.
That’s exactly what he plans on doing with future St. John’s teammates who are a part of a recruiting class ranked No. 3 in the nation. One of them, Amir Garrett, sat in the back of West 4th to watch Harkless play. He said he has gotten a chance to meet all of them at some point this summer and is excited about their potential moving forward.
“We are trying to develop a good bond right now so we can have a head start,” Harkless said.
He wasn’t even certain if his career at St. John’s, which made the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2002 under first-year coach Steve Lavin, was going to get underway. Earlier this summer he was told he might not be eligible to play for the Red Storm because he played in two AAU tournaments with the Gauchos for whom current St. John’s director of basketball operations Mo Hicks served in an administrative capacity.
An NCAA rule doesn’t allow a college to recruit a player that employs a coach or administrator who was associated with a player’s high school or AAU team for two years. Harkless has since been cleared to play.
“I was confident because I already knew I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “I played for the Gauchos for maybe two weekends. I didn’t think that was going to be such a big deal.”
A big deal is exactly what he and the incoming recruiting class hopes to make St. John’s moving forward.
“I just can’t wait for it to start,” Harkless said. “I’m anxious.”