NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — On the last day of the spring recruiting period in 2012, Iona associate head coach Jared Grasso showed up at St. Thomas More in Oakdale, Conn., to watch a prospect named A.J. English.
Although Dayton and La Salle were interested, the 6-foot-4 English didn’t have a single scholarship offer at that point even though he had averaged 18 points a game in his postgraduate year at St. Thomas More.
“We heard he could score the ball and he had a big reputation as a scorer,” Grasso recalled Tuesday at Iona. “I walk in the gym and he made just about every shot the whole day. And I was shocked the kid was still available.”
Two days later, on April 22, English committed on his visit to Iona.
“We needed an offensive combo guard who could score the ball and I was just shocked that a kid who could score the ball and shoot the ball as well as he could was still available,” Grasso said.
Fast forward two years and English has become an NBA prospect. A dozen NBA teams have been through Iona this fall to watch English, a junior who averaged 17.2 points, 4.3 assists and 3.9 rebounds last season.
A native of Wilmington, Del., English is the leading returning scorer on a Gaels team that opens the 2014-15 college season at home on Friday night against Cleveland State and will face Wofford in Spartanburg, S.C., at 7 a.m. on Tuesday on ESPN2.
“[The NBA scouts] have all been very excited about how A.J.’s been playing,” Iona head coach Tim Cluess said. “They liked his size for a point guard, being 6-foot-4 and the fact that he can attack the rim the way he does, shoot it the way he does and he’s passing the ball very well. He’s rangy on defense, he’s got like a 6-9 1/2 wingspan, so he’s definitely got an NBA body and a possibility, if he keeps developing, of an NBA game.”
English knows a thing or two about the NBA.
His father, A.J. II, was a 6-3 shooting guard and All-American at Division II Virginia Union University, following Charles Oakley to that program after he had a conversation with the future Knicks and Bulls power forward. A.J. II ended up rooming at Virginia Union with Terry Davis, who would go on to play in the NBA for more than a decade and is the father of Lakers’ forward Ed Davis.
The elder English played two seasons with the Washington Bullets from 1990-92 where he averaged just under 10 points per game before playing in Europe for many years.
“I wasn’t born yet,” the younger English said of his father’s time in the NBA. “I was born in ’92 and he played in the early ’90s. He told me a lot about being there.”
The elder English said he’s not surprised that NBA teams are looking at his son.
“I think people don’t really understand how good A.J. is yet,” the father said in a phone interview. “I think he’s still scratching the surface of how good he’s going to be.”
The father drives up from Delaware to watch his son play at Iona, and plans to be at Friday’s opener.
“I think [Coach] Cluess has done a good job with A.J., grooming him into a point guard at that level,” the father said. “I played the shooting guard at 6-4. When I got to the NBA, a lot of my better games were at the point guard just because of my size. At 6-4, he’s going to have an advantage at the point. A lot of guys who are three men at 6-6, 6-7 are transitioning into two guards and a lot of two guards are transitioning into ones just because guys are bigger and stronger.”
A.J. II raised his son as a basketball player, but said he never pressured him into following his footsteps.
“Of course, as a dad I introduced him and his brother to the game,” he said. “But whether they were going to choose to play, that was on them. I didn’t force it on him. A.J. played baseball, he played football, he played basketball. He exceeded in every sport. I would sit out there at the baseball games and the football games and in basketball season I would sit in the gym and they kind of chose what they wanted to do. I just told them, whatever you do, you’ve got to do it wholeheartedly and put your all into it.”
Said the son: “If we liked basketball, we liked basketball but he didn’t really force it on us, you know?”
English played high school ball at Appoquinimink (DE) before doing a postgrad year at St. Thomas More and also ran with Team Takeover on the AAU circuit.
Though he had some interest from colleges early in his high school career, he didn’t have any offers by the spring of 2012.
Until Iona came around.
“When I committed, Iona was the only scholarship at the time,” he said.
He picked the Gaels after talking with guys like Sean Armand and Mike Glover who had enjoyed success in Cluess’ wide-open, up-tempo system.
“They were getting looks at the next level so of course looking at them helped me,” he said.
English’s main goal this season is to help Iona — the preseason No. 1 team in the MAAC — get back to the NCAA Tournament.
“If it happens, it happens,” he said. “But of course winning the MAAC championship [is a goal] and making it back to the NCAA Tournament.”
Beyond that, English dreams of following in his father’s footsteps in the NBA. Iona has had players like Scott Machado spend brief stints in the NBA, but none have stuck. Machado is now in Estonia, while former Iona star Lamont “Momo” Jones plays in Saudi Arabia.
“Of course, playing basketball you want to make it to the highest level,” he said, “so of course I would like to be able to play at the next level.”
