No, this isn’t the fourth installment in the Bourne series.
This is about Maine East senior basketball player Nuse Khan. He wrapped up his prep career Monday with an 83-54 loss to Mather in the play-in game of the Loyola Regional. The Demons won five games after winning 37 in the previous two seasons.
But Khan had one of the best seasons of any player in CSL history, averaging nearly 28 points a game. He even scored 48 in the season’s opener.
Problem was, he was virtually invisible. While a couple of college coaches came out to watch him play at Loyola on Monday, Khan’s game wasn’t at its best this season despite his 25 points. Most likely, it hasn’t been all season.
The trouble with being a good player on a bad team is coaches think the points you score, the rebounds you get are because nobody else on your team is good. You’re an inflated commodity. But in the case of Khan, he clearly is a better player when he has better players around him. If Abdel Nader and Charles McKinney were in Maine East uniforms this season, Khan might scored 10 points less per game, but he’s a candidate for all-state.
Maine East coach Huey Crawford told me that a few Division III teams are interested in Khan, but Khan wants to play Division I. This really is an interesting case study in recruiting. I will have more in our March 11 print editions.
