By The TimesLedger
Miguel Gonzalez might not be the first person to leap to mind when considering the best CHSAA basketball player in Queens during the past season. In fact, he might not even have made the top five.
But without question Gonzalez was the most valuable player on his team, and the most valuable player to his team, the Holy Cross Knights, perhaps more than anyone else in the entire city, let alone the borough he calls home.
“We asked him to do a tremendous amount of things,” confessed Holy Cross head coach Paul Gilvary. “He had to do everything. He was our best at everything.”
Holy Cross managed only one league win all season, a triple-overtime victory over the likewise bottom-dwelling Monsignor McClancy Crusaders. But a poor team record — a team decimated by graduation the year before — should not detract from what Gonzalez accomplished in the 2001-2002 season.
“I knew we would struggle, but I didn’t think we would struggle this much,” Gonzalez said.
The 18-year-old Jamaica resident scored a league-high 22.1 points per game, including 18 20-point games and a high-water mark of 34, coming in the team’s lone league win. He also was named MVP of the Jimmy V Classic and to the all-tournament team of the Woodside Virgina Christmas Tournament.
Quite simply, he was every weapon Holy Cross had. Opponents knew that going in, but simply could not stop him.
“You can’t really ask for much more, especially in a league like this, the best league in the country,” Gonzalez said.
What failed him was the recruiting process. Despite beating out much bigger names for the league scoring crown, Gonzalez waited to commit to a school for next year until the last minute. Only a handful of Division I schools, such as University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Niagara, St. Peter’s and Chicago State, expressed interest.
Gonzalez’s announcement came Monday, as the budding star chose Southern New Hampshire, which has been a top-notch Division II program.
Even though some big-time schools may have missed the boat on Gonzalez, his stats and his game tell the real story, which is why he is the TimesLedger CHSAA Player of the Year.
