Lance Thomas transfers

After a year in the stratosphere of big time high school basketball replete, with out of state tournaments, packed arenas, televised games, shoe contracts and nonstop hype basketball will return to normal at Scotch Plains Fanwood High School this winter. Whether that’s a good thing or not depends on one’s perspective but when 6-foot-8 junior Lance Thomas announced his intentions last Wednesday to transfer to Prep power St. Benedicts few were surprised, least of all his coach Dan Doherty.

“It just the way things are going. High school basketball has become big business,” deadpanned Doherty.
“Lance has become one of the top ten or fifteen juniors in the country and he thought he needed to be in a program with greater national exposure.”

A number of events made Thomas’ decision inevitable. In June, a St. Benedict’s player from last year’s team JR Smith jumped straight from high school to become a first round NBA pick. Some scouts have compared the two and Thomas figures to take over Smith’s position.

“Lance is looking at the National Basketball Association(NBA) but he’s a good student and college is a definite possibility for him,” said Doherty.

Another highly touted Scotch Plains player, freshman Ashton Gibbs bypassed the high school entirely and will play this year at Seton Hall Prep. And most importantly,
Thomas’ friend and high school teammate last year 6-foot-9 260 pound Derrick Caracter
decided to transfer back to St. Patrick’s of Elizabeth, where he had begun his high school career.

The two, nicknamed “The Twin Towers” led the Raiders to a 16-9 season their first winning season in four years. Included in that record was an impressive showing in the Slam Dunk To the Beach tournament in Delaware and a close loss to Camden in the Prime Time Shootout in 14,000 seat Soveirn Arena in Trenton.. With Caracter and Thomas, the Raiders were an extremely hot ticket. Nearly every game was standing room only. This year was looked to be even better but now Doherty will make do without his marquee duo and junior point guard Mike Johnson, the teams’ third leading scorer a year ago, who is also joining Thomas at St. Benedicts.

Doherty, while disappointed at the loss of the three players fully understands the obstacles public schools face to compete against the recruiting machines of St. Anthony’s, Seton Hall, St Benedicts and St. Patrick’s among others.

“I don’t think you’ll ever see a big time player in the north jersey area ever play at a public school again ,” said Doherty.

One of the positive results from the Caracter-Thomas era is that Scotch Plains Fanwood was able to get a three-year contract for free shoes from Nike. That will continue.

The departures of Thomas and Caracter create a huge void on Scotch
Plains-Fanwood's roster, but Doherty is confident that returnees like juniors Sean Young and Gavin Ford will keep the Raiders competitive.

“We’re back to where we were. It was an interesting year,” said Doherty.

"It's obviously going to have a major effect on our program, but it basically
just makes us go back to what we were," Doherty said. "We still have some good,
young players, but it's going to be a challenge without them for the rest of
the kids."