inland empire, carrier to transfer

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SoCalHoops Recruiting News

Inland Empire Stuff: Carrier Transfers
To Prep School--(Aug. 10, 1999)

Our source for news and updates in the Inland Empire wrote to us today, sending a copy of an article from the Monday, August 9th edition of The San Bernardino County Sun. The article was not on the Sun's website, so our friend sent us a copy and we're posting the article below. The gist of it is that Lawrence Carrier (6'-8" So. PF) will be leaving Redlands this fall, transferring to a prep school in the East. For those who've been following summer ball and who have had access to the rosters for Elvert Perry's Inland team, for whom Lawrence played this summer, that's not excactly a revelation, since he's been listed as being enrolled at a prep school since early in the summer. However, this is the first "news" confirmation of the story since early summer, and from what Lawrence and his mother told the paper, it looks like a done deal. Here's the story:

CARRIER MAY QUIT REDLANDS
Damian Secore

Redlands High School basketball prodigy Lawrence Carrier probably will transfer to a prep school in Connecticut, he and his mother say.

"Redlands is cool but there's too many things going on parties, hanging out with my friends," Carrier said. "I think it would be better for me to be in a more isolated area. I just never really sat down and put my whole mind into schoolwork. Now's the time for me to take it seriously."

Carrier is a 6-foot-8 rising sophomore considered one of the nation's top prospects among underclassmen. "I think he's going to be a fabulous player," said Redlands coach Randy Genung. "He's a big, strong, coordinated kid, especially for that age. "Losing him would be a big blow for us."

Genung said Sunday he has not given up hope of talking Carrier and his mother, Audrey Fields, into changing their minds about enrolling him at Salisbury Prep. "Redlands High School is as good an education as you can get," Genung said. "What would a prep school do, give him grades?"

On Friday, Fields said her son needs to transfer for academic reasons. "Redlands is a wonderful school. He got along with all the people there and all the teachers, but he's kind of behind," Fields said of her son. "He wouldn't have the (educational) experience there that he would get from the prep school. "We talked about it last year but he was extremely young then. Over the year, he has matured a little bit."

Carrier also has matured as a basketball player. As a freshman, Carrier averaged 7.7 points and 5.3 rebounds in 28 games for the Terriers, but interest in the 15-year-old shooting forward surged in the past month, after his performance at the adidas ABCD Camp in Teaneck, N.J. According to Brick Oettinger of The Sporting News, Carrier was "a phenom who emerged from nowhere with a stellar set of performances." Oettinger ranked Carrier the sixth-best underclassman at the 240-player camp.

Carrier would join former Eisenhower player Wayne Tinsley at Salisbury Prep. Entering his senior year at Salisbury Prep, Tinsley, a 6-foot-5 swingman, is being heavily recruited by Big East school Miami (Fla.) and was deemed a top-50 prospect by The Sporting News. Though prep schools, which allow a fifth year of eligibility, are often associated with providing a higher level of basketball competition, Carrier insists that did not factor into the decision. "It really wasn't even a point," he said. "You can get better competition anywhere you go."

Nor was the tentative decision to attend prep school influenced by anyone outside of the family. "If anyone would have given me advice, I wouldn't have cared about it," Carrier said. Genung believes Carrier has gotten bad advice in recent weeks. He notes that players who stayed home at Inland Empire schools Corey Benjamin, Byron Russell, Sean Rooks and Ray Owes have gone on to NBA careers. Genung said several prominent players who transferred to prep schools have not been nearly as successful.

Also in today's edition of the Sun, the Sports Editor wrote a little piece regarding the success of local preps who stayed in area schools vs. those who went away to preps... That column is also not on the web, and we don't have a copy of it, but we'll try to get it so you can all share in the story. It is an interesting comparison. If you can get hold of a hard copy of the paper, great; if not, we'll try to post up the story later.