Bonner-Prendie’s Deuce Ketner believes his ‘best basketball is ahead’ after Millersville commitment
The 6-foot-7 forward had numerous Division I schools showing interest, although no coaching staff fully committed to him. He found that trust in the Marauders.
When it came down to it, Deuce Ketner wanted to go to a school that genuinely wanted him.
A 6-foot-7 forward at Bonner-Prendergast, Ketner grew tired of unfulfilled promises by Division I schools, and frustrated over playing the waiting game with the overflow of players in the transfer portal who were clogging up the recruiting process.
So on May 1, Ketner made it public that he had committed to Millersville, a Division II program. He chose Millersville over another Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference squad, Lock Haven.
“I feel Millersville is the best option for me to develop as a person and as a player,” said Ketner, who was an all-league player, averaging 17.5 points in the Philadelphia Catholic League, the strongest league in the state.
“The coaching staff and the coach that they have are very good. ... The stuff that I have a problem with is his strength. I think coach [Casey Stitzel] and I are going to go together very well. His strength is turning on people’s motors and keeping it on. I feel my best basketball is ahead of me.”
The Millersville staff is projecting Ketner, the son of the late Lari Ketner, who was an NBA player and Roman Catholic star, to be a versatile shooting guard, small forward or power forward. At Bonner-Prendie, because of his size, he sometimes played with his back to the basket. Between sixth and seventh grade, he went from 5-5 to 6-2.
Ketner admitted he was growing frustrated. Numerous Division I schools were showing interest in him, although no coaching staff fully committed to him. Time was passing, and he started to question whether basketball was in his future.
“I felt like everyone looked over me, that no one wanted a project to put in their time to develop their players,” he said. “It is like college coaches do not want to do that anymore, because of the transfer portal.
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“If you are not top 150 [in] high school, finding a college coming out of high school is even tougher if all the guys in the transfer portal, from junior college players to D-III, D-II, D-I, prep school players, [are] moving up. It leads a lot to players like me getting pushed back. Everyone that was talking to me stopped talking to me out of the blue. I got cut off for guys in the transfer portal, like everything I did, did not count.”
Billy Cassidy, Bonner-Prendie’s coach, believes Millersville is a great fit for Ketner. Under Stitzel, the Marauders have become a top-three program in the PSAC, finishing 24-7 last season and second in the PSAC East, locked in a three-way tie with Lock Haven, the regular-season winner based on tiebreakers, and East Stroudsburg.
The Marauders reached the PSAC semifinals, where they lost to eventual champion Gannon. Millersville qualified for the Division II NCAA Tournament, losing in the first round to West Liberty. Former Widener assistant coach and Chestnut Hill College star Dexter Harris, who recently took the head-coaching position at Wilson College in Chambersburg, was a former Millersville assistant who had some influence in recruiting Ketner.
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The Marauders had two locals on last season’s roster, Episcopal Academy’s Matt Dade, a 6-6 senior forward who led the team in scoring, averaging 18.6 points, and Upper Dublin’s Drew Stover, a 6-8 junior forward who averaged 13 points.
“Deuce was getting D-I looks and the way the process was going, he wanted to make a decision sooner rather than to wait later, and Millersville is a good fit,” Cassidy said. “They see him as a one-through-five type of player. Deuce really enjoyed his visit at Millersville. Deuce is definitely a D-I caliber player. But the way the system is right now, I am proud he did not overlook going D-II.”
Ketner said he thought about going the junior college route, since he did not have substantial offers early in the season. But when Millersville and Lock Haven came into the picture, junior college or prep school went on a back burner.
“I’m sticking with Millersville, because Millersville stuck with me,” Ketner said.
“College coaches are looking down the bench at other D-I teams before they look at high school kids. It’s why I started looking at the PSAC. I began looking at the players in D-II and seeing that a lot of D-II schools play the same quality as low D-Is, and some [of] the D-IIs play probably higher than low D-Is. The competition is there.”
This story was produced as part of a partnership between The Inquirer and City of Basketball Love, a nonprofit news organization that covers high school and college basketball in the Philadelphia area while also helping mentor the next generation of sportswriters. This collaboration will help boost coverage of the city’s vibrant amateur basketball scene, from the high school ranks up through the Big 5 and beyond.