Omari Lawrence wanted to win a city basketball championship at St. Raymond’s, but admits that now it’s not likely to happen.
Kevin Parrom already has had to leave the school after an altercation with coach Oliver Antigua and Lawrence, who was at the Rumble in The Bronx, an AAU tournament at Fordham over the weekend, said he may follow Parrom out the door.
“It’s 50-50 whether I stay,” Lawrence said. “And even if I do, the title is still the goal, but without Kevin, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Lawrence said he hasn’t spoken to Antigua in months and was disappointed in how things had worked out.
“I always expected to stay for four years at St. Raymond’s, and we were all set up to have a great year next year and then everything fell apart,” said Lawrence, who may end up at South Kent, a prep school, with Parrom. “It’s too bad, and it never should have happened. It makes the school look bad and it makes all of us look bad. I don’t know if I want to be there anymore.”
No matter where Lawrence ends up next year, he will remain a major college recruit and said he isn’t worried that the uncertainty will affect his recruitment.
“That’s still my focus,” said Lawrence, a Big East-caliber player. “I’m not letting any of this get in the way of that.”
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Lamont Jones, who left Rice nearly a year ago to attend a prep school outside Philadelphia, is on the move again, because his school, American Christian, closed recently. When asked last weekend if he would have made the switch had he known the school would be defunct less than a year later, Jones said, “Probably not, but I don’t regret leaving Rice. I wanted to get out of the city.”
Though he hasn’t found a new school yet, he has no intentions of returning to New York.
“Everything happens for a reason,” the guard said. “I’m still focused on my ultimate goal: To get to the league.”