Reynold Carrington coaches the 17U national soccer team in Trinidad & Tobago and previously played professionally. His son, Kariym, was a standout at Division II St. Leo.
The athletic genes were passed on to Khadeen Carrington — except he’s enjoying success using a different ball.
The 6-foot-3 guard from Bishop Loughlin has emerged as one of the top prospects in New York City this summer, a rising junior with loads of Division I scholarship offers some feel is on par with Lincoln dynamo Isaiah Whitehead as the top player in the area for the Class of 2014.
“Basketball took me,” Carrington said on the final day of the live recruiting period at The Hoop Group’s Buzzer Beater Classic at Basketball City in lower Manhattan. “I fell in love with it.”
Carrington has broken into the top 100 in Rivals.com’s national rankings for his class, he has landed offers from Iowa State, Dayton, St. John’s, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Providence, Iowa, West Virginia, South Carolina, DePaul and Hofstra.
It’s all come quick for the gifted Trinidadian-born southpaw, an All-City second team selection by The Post. It began with his sensational sophomore season at Bishop Loughlin, Carrington averaging 22.5 points per game to lead the young Lions to the CHSAA Class AA intersectional quarterfinals. It continued this spring and summer with the New York Lightning and in various showcase camps.
“It’s good to know college coaches look at you, they want you to come to their school,” he said. “It shows my hard work is paying off.”
Carrington was actually going to play soccer, he said, before local AAU coach Keith Oliver spotted him and convinced him to try basketball at the age of eight. Carrington’s mother, Lima Dufont, was at first hesitant, knowing little about the sport and expecting him to fllow his brother and father’s footsteps on the pitch. It was rough in the early going. Carrington joked he would dribble the ball with two hands at once.
“I used to suck,” he said, cracking up at his own futility at one time.
He’s come a long way from there, a credit to his work ethic. Sunday, for example, after scoring 21 points to lead the Lightning in a consolation bracket victory at the Buzzer Beater Classic, he played two more games, at Dean Street and Gershwin Park in Brooklyn. He often works with Oliver when he isn’t with his AAU team or Bishop Loughlin.
“Everyone says humble and hungry, but he really is humble and hungry,” Lightning coach Chris Williams said.
Carrington is quiet off the court and loud on it, with his actions not words.
“We played against teams from all over and he literally made sure everyone in the gym knew if he wasn’t the best player on the court, he was the next best thing,” Williams said.
Carrington couldn’t have scripted a better summer. His goal was to impress college coaches, get recognized nationally and have success with the Lightning — all of which he accomplished.
One Division I assistant coach whose school has offered Carrington said there are some coaches he has spoken with who would take Carrington over Whitehead. The coach said he would still give Whitehead the slight edge — “there’s a thin gap,” the coach said — but raved about Carrington’s poise, athleticism and explosive scoring ability.
“He can do a lot of good things on the basketball court,” the coach said.
Whitehead and Carrington are friends and will play together in August for Brooklyn in the Battle of the Boroughs. Carrington respects Whitehead, but also doesn’t want to take a backseat to him, either.
“He knows I’m here,” Carrington said. “I’m going to make a run at him.”
College coaches are certainly aware of him.