NYC guards lead Michigan State, Kansas State to Sweet 16 at MSG

NEW YORK (AP)— Stories of New York City point guards have an almost mythicalquality.

There areHall of Famers and trailblazers such as Bob Cousy and Nate “Tiny”Archibald. In the 1980s, Kenny Smith and Kenny Anderson followed asimilar path — from the same Catholic high school in Queens to theAtlantic Coast Conference to the NBA.

From PearlWashington to Mark Jackson, Stephon Marbury to Sue Bird, tenaciousplayers forged by rugged games played at the famous courts atRucker Park and West Fourth Street are a part of basketballlore.

And while NewYork City high schools haven’t been pumping out stars in recentyears the way they used to, three of the four teams that havereached the NCAA Tournament'sEast Regional at Madison SquareGarden have point guards with Big Apple backgrounds.

MichiganState’s Tyson Walker and Kansas State’s Markquis Nowell will renewtheir acquaintance in the Sweet 16 when the seventh-seeded Spartans(21-12) face the third-seeded Wildcats (25-9) on Thursdaynight.

“I grew upplaying in parks with him,” Nowell said. “I just want to give a bigshoutout to New York City for breeding tough and gritty guards andjust give him a shoutout.”

The otherpoint guard who’s making a homecoming this week will only be ableto watch his team at The Garden. No. 4 seed Tennessee managed toreach the second weekend of the tournament without the injuredZakai Zeigler,who blew out his left knee on Feb.28.

“I had nodoubt in my mind that we were going to be here in this situation,”said Zeigler, who grew up on Long Island and finished his highschool career in the Bronx. “So now that I’m back here and I canhave some pizza, I feel great.”

TheVolunteers (25-10)faceninth-seeded FAU (33-3)inthe late game of the doubleheader.

The 5-foot-8Nowell became one of the breakout stars of this NCAA Tournamentwhen he went off for 27 points in asecond-round victory againstKentucky.

Nowell, whoseTwitter handle is@MrNewYorkCityyand [email protected] Instagram,grew up in Harlem, attended high school in the Bronx and went tocollege at Arkansas Little-Rock before transferring to Manhattan —Kansas, that is.

“I made apromise to myself back when I was in high school that I was goingto do anything and everything in my power to be the best playerthat came out of New York,” Nowell said. “So I kind of keep thatedge and that kind of just reminds me every day that I wake up thatI still have more work to do. Guys like Carmelo (Anthony), BernardKing and all the greats came out of New York, so that just keeps megrounded and keeps me working hard.”

Ask Nowellabout the New York City point guards he idolized in high school andhe brings up the Mavericks’ Kemba Walker, who led UConn to anational championship and was a first-round pick in the NBA draftin 2011, and the Pelicans’ Jose Alvarado, who played at GeorgiaTech.

Alvarado wentto Christ the King High School in Queens, a power in both boys andgirls basketball that also produced Bird and the Spartans’Walker.

Like Nowell,Walker started his college career at a mid-major (Northeastern) andtransferred after two seasons to Michigan State in 2021.

According to247 Sports rankings, the last top-30 national recruit to come froma New York City high school was Moses Brown, a 7-footer who went toUCLA from Archbishop Molloy, where Smith and Anderson starred inthe ’80s.

“Are we asgood as we once was? Well, if you take away all the kids that grewup in New York that go to prep school outside of New York ... andconsider them New York, yes, we are,” said Cardozo High Schoolcoach Ron Neclario, the winningest NYC public school coach ever.“Do we have as many high, high, high majors? Maybe not, but we haveplenty of low-majors. We have plenty of mid-majors.”

Where Nowellleans into his New York roots, Walker takes a low-key approach.

“Just got tobe tough. Got a different type of finesse with you,” he said.

Walker wasalso a difference-maker in the second round of the tournament,scoring 23 points to leadMichigan State past second-seededMarquette.

“I thinksometimes the New York swagger is a very cocky swagger, andsometimes that’s good,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. “He’skind of had the happy medium. He’s got enough cockiness to beconfident, and yet he’s an unbelievable kid.”

Izzo jokedafter beating Marquette about how Walker owed him cab ride and aslice of pizza for helping him earn a trip home.

“Got me mypizza last night,” Izzo said. “I’m looking for the cab ridetoday.”

Nowell is oneof four Kansas State players from the New York area, along withTykei Greene, Nae’Qwan Tomlin and Ismael Massoud. None has everplayed at The Garden, only dreamed about it.

“I had my bigbrother, my father, my uncles working me out every day for a momentlike this,” Nowell said. “Standing here, being here at MadisonSquare Garden.”