After spending two years in street clothes on the Seton Hall basketball team's bench because of knee problems, Jaquan Harris heard the news he'd been waiting for last month.
“I got permission for basketball activities,” he said. “I can do almost everything now (other than communicating). I'm very happy to be back.”
But he never returns to the hall. The 6-foot-3 sophomore point guard from North Brunswick entered the transfer gate with mixed emotions.
“I loved being around the players. I loved being around Shah (head coach Shaheen Holloway). Just watching him coach and watching the top guards in our league. I just watched,” Harris said. “But I need to play a lot (next season) because I've been out for a while. I need to get a lot of reps.”
Harris will need to be transferred down to get enough game reps to make up for lost time.
“It wasn’t because I didn’t like Seton Hall,” he said. “I love Seton Hall. I love being here. I love the locker room and the coaches. This was a mutual agreement.”
Harris said a “cartilage issue” in his right knee was what forced him to withdraw from rising star St. Thomas Aquinas High School. He appeared in just eight games in his final two seasons there, and was asked by then-Hall coach Kevin Willard to play college ball, along with his older brother Jameel Harris, who was a part-time starter in the Pirates' backcourt. I promised to play.
When Willard left for Maryland, Jaquan Harris stayed the course and Holloway welcomed him.
“I wanted to play at Seton Hall because I knew how good a coach Sha was,” he said. “I'm from New Jersey. I've always wanted to stay here and play here.”
However, the knee did not recover, and Harris elected to undergo surgery in January of his freshman year. During his recovery, he said: There were many ups and downs. ”
He extracted everything he could from that experience, majoring in social and behavioral sciences and posting a 3.3 cumulative GPA while studying the game, specifically Holloway's defensive principles.
“I learned a lot of things I didn’t know before I went to college,” he said. “I was just trying to absorb everything.”
Harris helped his parents, Jameel, who is currently playing in Portugal, and younger brother, Jevron, a highly regarded 6-foot-4 guard who is a sophomore at College Achieve Asbury Park, get through their toughest times. I believe it helped me. And he wants Seton's Hall of Fame fans to know that their wishes were helpful.
“Thank you to all the fans who checked up on me. They always gave me positive words when they saw me,” he said. “I wish I could have performed to the best of my ability, but everything happens for a reason.”
One thing is certain.
“From now on, I'm going to value basketball a thousand times more,” he said.
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and college basketball since 2003. He is an Associated Press top 25 pollster. To contact him, jcarino@gannettnj.com.