Ncaa Basketball Tournament 2007

OLSM Grad Lucas, OU's Benson, Could Be Selected in NBA Draft

A pair of products from Oakland County high school basketball programs could be selected in the NBA Draft tonight.

Kalin Lucas, a 2007 graduate of Orchard Lake St. Mary’s (OLSM) Preparatory, and Keith Benson, a 2006 graduate of Detroit County Day School in Beverly Hills, have reportedly been working out for NBA teams since graduation from their respective universities this spring.

Lucas finished his senior season at Michigan State University with a loss in the first round of the NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball tournament in March, while Benson’s Oakland University Golden Grizzlies also fell in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

If selected, Lucas would be the first OLSM graduate to make the NBA. Eaglets head coach George Porritt said last week that he felt Lucas could make an NBA team better on account of his skill, leadership and speed.

“Obviously, he’s smaller than the size of your typical NBA guard,” Porritt said of 6'1" Lucas last week. “But he’s fast and he’s smart. He’s always been a leader on the floor and I think he showed that at MSU. He could certainly make it in the league.”

Lucas’s agent, Michael Whitaker, declined to name the individual teams in which Lucas had worked out for last week. A mock draft on NBA.com did not show Lucas as being drafted. However, he could very well sign with either an NBA team or other professional team as an undrafted free agent.

Benson, of Farmington Hills, would be the first player in the 13-year history of Oakland University as a Division 1 athletics department to be selected in the draft. Benson, at 6' 11", won the Summit League Player of the Year Award in 2010 and 2011 as part of the winningest senior class in OU history with 91 wins.

NBA.com projects Benson as being taken in the second round of the draft, at 44, by the Golden State Warriors. The draft, held in Newark, N.J., will be nationally televised live tonight at 7 on ESPN and ESPN3.com.

On the Move: Peters to Tulsa - APSE

He replaces Mike Strain, who had been the sports editor at the World since 2005 and recently was promoted to news editor. The World earned one top 10 and two honorable mentions in the APSE contest this year along with two writing awards. It has been named a top-10 sports website by APSE judges in each of the first two years of that category's existence, and also won a multimedia project award this year. Peters' role at the Chronicle had expanded over the years beyond leading the high school staff (two full-time writers, one statistician and dozens of stringers covering more the 200 high schools). He directed the paper's 2011 Final Four coverage, working with 20 writers, designers and copy editors in producing 108 pages of coverage during the NCAA men's basketball tournament, including five special sections in six days of Final Four Weekend. "I just can't say enough about my time in Houston,"Peters said. "Jenny Dial, Sam Khan Jr., Gerald James and the rest of our high school sports staff were the best teammates you could have," Peters said. "And I was very fortunate to work with editors like Carlton Thompson, Jeff Rosen, Charlie Crixell, Jay Lee and Brad Lehma. I learned a lot of things from them and was always given the freedom to branch out and try new things. Peters, a Texas A&M graduate, was a sports writer at the Bryan-College Station Eagle and Beaumont Enterprise before becoming sports editor of the Galveston County Daily News in January 2000. He returned to the Beaumont Enterprise in July 2003, and he led the paper to five APSE top-10 writing honors before heading to the Chronicle at the start of 2008. "In Provo, the entire sports staff was eight total full-time employees," Dickson said. "In Lincoln, there's 17. I feel like my first order of business will be to get to know my staff and find out their strengths and weaknesses. … I have lived in Utah for 23 years, and I feel like I know the local sports landscape. It will be a big challenge to get up to speed in Nebraska." "Darnell's sports staff team in Provo was highly regarded, and his leadership was shown in the award-winning coverage of BYU sports," Journal Star editor Michael Nelson said in a story announcing the hiring. "He had focused on football much of his career, so he is well-prepared for the challenges of covering the Huskers as Nebraska moves to the Big Ten.

2008 NCAA Mens Division I Basketball Tournament

Ncaa Women's Basketball Championship, 2009 Ncaa Women's Division I Basketball Tournament, Ncaa Women's Division I Tournament Bids by School

2006-07 Ncaa Division I Men's Basketball Season, 2007 Ncaa Men's Division I Basketball Tournament

Congressional Record, V, 153, Part 7, April 18, 2007 to April 26, 2007

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