For the first time in his life, Keydren “Keekee” Clark is the star.
Recruited by St. Peter’s College coach Bob Leckie to rejuvenate a putrid Peacock program, the 5-foot-7 Clark has brought a basketball buzz to his tiny Jersey City Jesuit school.
Through Monday’s games, the freshman from city powerhouse Rice High ranks third in the nation at 26.3 points per game. He’s collected five MAAC Rookie of the Week awards and has won the respect of opposing coaches who didn’t want him last year but now greet him with box-and-one defenses.
“All my life, I’ve been trying to prove myself,” Clark said. “I guess big things come in small packages.”
Too short to star on New York playgrounds, Clark’s talents emerged at Rice and for the Riverside Church AAU program. But surrounded by Division I prospects on a state-championship high school team, he spent much of his time watching teammates post flashy scoring statistics.
Leckie, Clark’s first suitor, was undeterred by the height and numbers. Once a small guard at St. Peter’s, he saw Clark and thought Calvin Murphy, the former Niagara star who ran Leckie ragged in the late-1960s.
“I got here, and I realized my team had forgotten how to win,” said Leckie, 13-58 in his two-plus years at St. Peter’s. “Keekee provides us with that. He’s a winner, and we’re going to be a winner with him.”
The too-small player also chose the too-small school in part because of the proximity to his mom, Rosie, an ex-Alabama high school star who helped teach her son the game.
“He made a decision that he wanted to go somewhere where he could play,” said Rosie Clark, who drove 11 hours to Cincinnati to watch her son’s college debut at Xavier. “I told him it was going to be a little rough, but someone had to turn the program around.”
Such a revival already has started at St. Peter’s (5-10, 2-5 MAAC), which can hit its highest victory total in four seasons with a win tonight over Niagara.
The starting point guard since he hit campus, Clark scores a third of his team’s points and takes nearly triple the shots of any teammate. He dropped 48 points on Northern Arizona in a November overtime loss and torched St. Francis for 44 more on Thanksgiving eve.
He also plays 38 minutes per game, absurd for the nation’s elite, forget a boy who turned 18 three months ago. But it’s necessary, says Leckie.
Like the crowds at the Yantelli Center who shout “Save the day, Keekee,” when the Peacocks fall behind, he has anointed his freshman point guard as the key to a program turnaround.
“Over the summer, when people asked where I was going, nobody ever heard of St. Peter’s,” Clark said. “Our team made a pact that we would turn things around. I want to be a part of that. Little by little, it’s happening.”
Top guns
NCAA’s leading scorers through games of 1/20:
1. Mike Helms, Oakland (Mich.) 27.5
2. Henry Domercant, E. Illinois 26.4
3. Keydren Clark, St. Peter’s 26.3
4. Ruben Douglas, N. Mexico 25.7
5. Michael Watson, Mo.-K.C. 24.5