Goodman:BU Star Nearly Became A St. John's Student

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goodmanonfox    BU star nearly became a St. John's student after no D-1 offers - http://community.foxsports.com/goodmanonfox/blog/

4 minutes ago from web

http://community.foxsports.com/goodmanonfox/blog/

John Holland almost gave up basketball coming out of Fordham Prep.

Boston University’s leading scorer at 21 points per game and one of the leading candidates to win America East Player of the Year was all set to go to St. John’s and become a regular student.

There were no D-1 scholarship offers for the Bronx, N.Y., native coming out of high school, so he inked with Blinn Junior College in Texas.

Then one day he was on the computer and stumbled across the St. Benedict’s Prep program.

``I emailed them about 15 times,” Holland said. ``Every day.”

``They had no idea who I was,” he added.

Finally, Holland heard back from them and was invited down to team workouts – where he suffered from a mammoth-sized case of nerves upon walking in the gym and seeing highly touted players Corey Stokes, Samardo Samuels, Lance Thomas and Gregory Echenique.

But he performed well enough to make the prep school team and started much of the season.

Monmouth, St. Peter’s, Manhattan and eventually Boston University came calling and the 6-foot-5 former baseball star opted to take his game and Yankees hat to Beantown – where he won Rookie of the Year honors in 2007-08.

Holland averaged 18.1 points overall, including 20.5 in America East play, last season as a sophomore – making shots from behind the arc while shooting nearly 40 percent en route to first-team all-league honors.

But the numbers truly are irrelevant for Holland – a team guy who has bought into his role coming off the bench for rookie head coach Pat Chambers.

``We need more firepower off the bench,” Chambers said. ``And he hasn’t complained once.”

``I’ll do whatever the team needs,” Holland said.

Holland scored at least 20 points in all three games in San Juan – including 21 in a win against Indiana.

``It’s a real good win over such a storied program,” Holland said. ``It’s the biggest win in my college career – and it’s right there with winning the championship in Little League.”

``It was a great experience out in Puerto Rico, but we came here to win every game,” he added. ``We’re not satisfied with just one win. I’m happy with the win, but it’s not what we came here for.”

Good for him.

If this is we coulda had him post,
I'm angrier of the ignoring of guys like
Truck.

I'm glad for this BU kid, we everyone
missed on him.

Wild that he could have our best walk on ever.