FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 The Boston Globe Sports C7
The United States men’s basketball team is as-
sured of finishing no better than seventh at the
World Cup, its worst tournament showing in pro-
gram history, after falling to Serbia, 94-89, in a
consolation game Thursday night in Dongguan,
China. The previous worst finish for a US men’s
team in major tournament appearances was
sixth at the 2002 world championships. The
Americans — the top-ranked team in the world —
will be seventh or eighth in China, depending on
the outcome of their consolation finale against
Poland on Saturday.HarrisonBarnesscored 22
for the US, which got 18 from the Celtics’Kemba
Walkerand 16 fromKhrisMiddleton...Con-
necticut Sun centerJonquelJonesand guardJas-
mineThomaswere named to the WNBA All-De-
fensive first team. Sun forwardAlyssaThomas
was named to the second team.HORSE RACINGBaffertdeniesdopingJustify
Hall of Fame trainerBobBaffertdenied giving
2018 Triple Crown winning horse Justify a
banned substance that caused a positive test pri-
or to last year’s Kentucky Derby and blamed the
result on contaminated food. Baffert said in a
statement that he ‘‘unequivocally’’ rejects the im-
plication he’d give Justify or any other horse Sco-
polamine, which the colt tested positive for in
April 2018. The New York Times reported Justify
tested positive for the substance after winning
the Santa Anita Derby and that the California
Horse Racing Board did not adequately investi-
gate the matter. Justify was allowed to run in the
Kentucky Derby a month later.3horsesdeadatBelmont
Three horses died during the first two days of
Belmont Park’s fall season, mirroring the start
and end of the summer meet at Saratoga Race
Course in which 11 horses died during training
or non-racing activities and four died during rac-
es. According to the New York State Gaming
Commission’s equine database, two horses died
last Friday, opening day. Royal Inheritance col-
lapsed and died during training, and Passport-
tovictory was euthanized after being removed
from a race. Both were trained byJeremiahEn-
glehart. Mo Moxie was put down Saturday by a
veterinarian after the horse flipped while jogging
and fractured a leg on the training track.BASEBALLSurgeryendsOhtani’sseason
ShoheiOhtaniwill miss the rest of the Los
Angeles Angels’ season to have surgery on his left
kneecap. Los Angeles has been eliminated fromplayoff contention with 15 games left. Ohtani will
need 8-12 weeks to recover from surgery on a bi-
partite patella, or a two-part kneecap, according
to the Angels... Yankees designated hitterEdwin
Encarnaciónleft in the fifth inning with a
strained left oblique muscle in New York’s 10-4
win against the Tigers in Detroit in a doublehead-
er opener. StarterJ.A.Happwas taken out in the
fifth inning, bothered by left biceps tendinitis,
managerAaronBoonesaid. Yankees catcher
GarySánchezleft the second game of the double-
header in the third inning because of left groin
tightness. All three were sent back to New York
for further testing. The Yankees won the night-
cap, 6-4...MRIresults on Los Angeles Dodgers
third basemanJustinTurner’sleft ankle revealed
a mild sprain. Dodgers managerDaveRoberts
said Turner’s status for the weekend series
against the wild-card contending New York Mets
won’t be decided until closer to game time Friday,
according to ESPN.Manarraignedforkillings
The Virginia man who police say killed the
wife, son and mother-in-law of minor league
baseball pitcherBlakeBivenswas formally ar-
raigned. Officials with the Pittsylvania Juvenile
and Domestic Relations District Court said that
MatthewBernard, Bivens’s brother-in-law, was
arraigned on three counts of first-degree murder
and weapons-related charges. The 18-year-old is
being held in jail without bail. Authorities say
Bernard killed his sister,EmilyMarieBivens,
Blake Bivens’s wife, the couple’s 1-year-old son,
Cullen, and his mother,JoanBernard, in late Au-
gust.MISCELLANYClijstersplanningcomeback
Seven years after retiring from tennis a second
time,KimClijstersis attempting another come-
back at age 36. The former No. 1 and four-time
major champion, who already is a member of the
International Tennis Hall of Fame, announced
she is planning to return to the pro tour in 2020,
although she’s not yet ready to say exactly when
or where or how often she will compete... In the
PGA 2020 season opener,RobbySheltonshot an
8-under-par 62 to take a two-stroke lead after the
first round of A Military Tribute at The Greenbri-
er in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va... .Callum
Shinkwinhad five birdies and an eagle on his way
to a 6-under 66 and a one-shot lead after the first
round of the KLM Open in Amsterdam... In the
NHL, Vegas Golden Knights defensemanShea
Theodoretold the Players’ Tribune that he under-
went surgery for testicular cancer during the off-
season and is expected to make a full recovery.SportsLog
Las Vegas
lineJulian
BenbowChristopher
GasperGreg
LangCraig
LarsonMichael
Vega
Last week 6-4 8-2 7-3 6-4 5-5
Season 14-6 16-4 16-4 15-5 13-7
Kansas
at Boston CollegeBoston College
by 21Boston College Boston College Boston College Boston College Boston CollegeUMass
at CharlotteCharlotte
by 20Charlotte UMass Charlotte Charlotte CharlotteIowa
at Iowa StateIowa
by 1½Iowa Iowa State Iowa Iowa IowaUSC
at BYUUSC
by 4½USC USC USC USC BYUFlorida St.
at VirginiaVirginia
by 7½Virginia Virginia Virginia Virginia VirginiaMaryland
at TempleMaryland
by 7Maryland Maryland Maryland Maryland MarylandStanford
at UCFUCF
by 8½UCF UCF Stanford UCF UCFWashington St.
at HoustonWashington St.
by 9½Washington St. Washington St. Washington St. Washington St. Washington St.Florida
at KentuckyFlorida
by 8Florida Florida Florida Florida FloridaArizona St.
at Michigan St.Michigan St.
by 14½Michigan St. Michigan St. Michigan St. Michigan St. Michigan St.Selections are not against the pointspread.Globe staff’s college picksWEEK 3
His competitive nature has helped make him
the third-ranked boys’ high school basketball
player in the country for the class of 2021, No. 1
in Massachusetts, according to 247Sports. He is
being recruited by big-name schools and has nar-
rowed his list to Duke, Kentucky, Memphis, Bos-
ton College, UCLA, and Texas Tech. He has been
invited to exclusive workouts and pickup games
with NBA players such as Carmelo Anthony, Don-
ovan Mitchell, and Trae Young.
On Saturday, he is scheduled to hold a press
conference to announce his college decision.
It’s rare air for a Boston player. Clarke, a ju-
nior at New Hampshire prep powerhouse
Brewster Academy, grew up here and knows the
names Wayne Selden Jr. and Shabazz Napier. But
even they didn’t have as much hype coming out
of high school as he has. (Selden was ranked No.
14 in the country while Napier was No. 82, ac-
cording to 247Sports.)
Clarke is the first player from Boston to garner
this much national attention in more than a de-
cade.
“Boston is a great basketball city,” he said. “I
really want to do this for myself, but I also want
to do this for my community because [Boston]
has never been on the map. Nobody would say,
‘Oh, [top] basketball players come from Boston.’ I
want to be the person to make that happen.”
Earlyaptitude
To understand what basketball means to Ter-
renceClarke,youmusttraveltoRoxbury.
The bustling Boston neighborhood has pro-
duced NBA talent such as Jalen Adams, Selden,
and Napier. Clarke looked up to all of them grow-
ing up, and though he currently lives in Roslin-
dale, he spent a lot of his childhood at the Vine
Street Community Center. It was a safe haven in a
troubling environment where he could have fall-
en in with the wrong crowd.
“I’ve been in the middle of shootouts, I’ve seen
it all,” Clarke said. “But I was like, ‘If I stay in the
gym, I can play basketball and have fun all day.’
“I lived at Vine Street. I would go there from 8
a.m. to work out, then I would get some food,
come back, take a nap in the computer room, and
then go back and play again.”
Clarke first discovered basketball while at his
grandfather’s house, where he’d watch old Larry
Bird-Magic Johnson Celtics-Lakers games on
NBATV. When the network aired a special about
Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game in 1962, he
stared at the screen in awe. I want to be that guy ,
he thought.
Brandon Watson, a gym teacher at Young
Achievers Academy in Mattapan, gave Clarke his
formal introduction to the sport. And while most
kids played for fun, Watson saw a serious com-
petitive drive in Clarke as a second-grader.
“From the moment he got introduced to the
game or saw it, he probably ate, slept, and
pooped basketball,” said Watson. “He was always
uCLARKE
Continued from Page A1
a little bit better than everyone else.”
Young Achievers did not have a program for
his age group, so Clarke played up with fourth-
and fifth-graders. He’d want to spend all hours of
the day practicing different moves, and would cry
if he had to leave the gym.
“That was all the time,” Watson said, laughing
at the memory. “It would be fun for some of these
kids, but for him it would be competitive. His
love for the game, you see it in very few kids. You
know that he’s going to be something special.”
Clarke’s skills advanced thanks to a mentor,
Dexter Foy, whom he met when he was in going
into fifth grade. Foy and Maurice Smith, another
AAU coach, noticed him playing at the Tobin
Community Center in Roxbury. His height made
him stand out; he grew to 6 feet by seventh grade.
Before long, Foy was designing workouts for
him at gyms like Vine Street, focusing on his ball
handling and shooting.
“I really was in the gym with him every day in
the summer,” Clarke said. “I had no childhood be-
cause the main thing I wanted to do was play bas-
ketball.”
Clarke’s parents, Osman Clarke and Adrian
Briggs, worked often — his mother worked three
jobs at one point — so Foy took on a supportive
role. He not only brought Clarke to practices and
workouts, but was there for birthday parties,
Celtics games, and trips to Chez Vous, a roller
skating rink in Dorchester.
“He took me in as a son,” Clarke said. “He was
the one that put me in the gym and found me a
trainer, but also took me in like his own.”Transitiongame
Compared with other top recruits in his class
— such as explosive wing Jonathan Kuminga
(New Jersey) or skilled forward Patrick Baldwin(Wisconsin) — Clarke stands out as an athletic
shooting guard and energetic playmaker who is
dangerous with the ball. He can finish in traffic,
knock down shots, or throw effortless no-look
passes to open teammates.
In his first season for Brewster last year,
Clarke averaged 15.9 points, scoring 25 points
againsttop-rankedNewHampton.Hegainedna-
tional attention for his monster dunks and versa-
tility, even with current Phoenix Suns guard
Jalen Lecque, 19, playing right beside him.
The decision to transfer to Brewster from the
Rivers School in Weston came out of necessity:
Clarke knew the program, and coach Jason
Smith, would challenge him. Still, the transition
was difficult.
“The first couple practices, I cried because I
thought that it wasn’t going to work out for me,”
Clarke said.
“It’s like, you’ve got to sacrifice some things.
That’s how I look at it. I’ve got to sacrifice being
in the neighborhood to focus on my game,
school, and books. Of course I love the game, but
I want to carry my family.”
It’s all paying off. This summer, he played in
almost every elite camp, from the USA Basketball
camp to the NBA Players Association’s Top 100
camp, where former Celtics guard Ricky Davis
called him “one of the best players” at the camp.
“He’s been the top-five prospect since he came
into the picture,” said Adam Finkelstein, a na-
tional recruiting analyst for ESPN. “Has terrific
positional size, he’s a very fluid athlete, he’s got a
lasting body type, he covers the court. Most kids
that are 6-foot-6 don’t move like he does.”
Eric Bossi, a national basketball analyst for Ri-
vals.com, said, “He’s on the track of someone who
projects as an NBA player. Off the top of my head,
certainly in the last 5-10 years, I don’t think
there’s any question that he’s the best prospect
from Boston.”
Still, being an elite prospect in high school
doesn’t necessarily translate to NBA stardom.
“If he’s going to remain elite going on at future
levels, he’s going to have to establish reliable
weapons that can change the game against even
higher levels of competition,” said Finkelstein.
“That’s the next step for him.
“Physically and athletically, I think he can def-
initely step in and hold his own at that level.”
Top prospects grow by playing up to their
competition. In Clarke’s case, he has competed
against top prospects his age and older, such as
Jalen Green and Zion Harmon.
“Ever since I was younger, I wanted to go
[against] those kids,” Clarke said. “I always went
for those top guys, like Jalen Green. When we
were at Hoop Group and I went at him, I was like,
‘You are No. 1 and I want to get your spot.’ ”
Alexis Reyes, a 6-5 shooting guard from Rox-
bury who plays with Clarke on Expressions Elite,
describes Clarke as “versatile.”
“His game is unique,” Reyes said. “I feel like
he’s picked up on a lot of things, especially athlet-
icism and strength.”Finkelstein says that with that kind of hype, it
can be hard for young athletes to stay focused.
“For Terrence or anyone that has that kind of
status, what’s most important is prioritizing the
right things,” he said. “The Instagram followers,
the social media stuff, video cameras, all of that
stuff is quite frankly insignificant in terms of the
bigger picture when you’re talking about a guy
that has the type of opportunity he does.”Dreamingbig
Clarke can’t bring himself to imagine playing
in the NBA yet, in part because the dream is so
big. He remembers how much he looked up to
players like Rajon Rondo, and how they inspired
him.
“He was a problem back then,” Clarke said of
Rondo during his Celtics days. “Him passing to
Ray Allen with his back turned, throwing alleys
to Kevin Garnett. I used to go on his website, and
listentothemusichelistenedtoandwatchhis
videos.”
One of Clarke’s favorite basketball memories
is attending a Celtics game when he was 8 and
meeting Rondo.
“I stopped and froze,” said Clarke. “I don’t
know how the security let me do this, but I ran to
him screaming, ‘Rondo! Rondo!’ I shut down cry-
ing and he said, ‘Keep working.’ That advice
changed me.”
Clarke saw things come full circle when he
met Rondo again at the NBA Players Association
camp last year.
“I told him that I always looked up to [him]
and he told me I was a great player,” said Clarke.
“Hearing that from him was crazy.”
It’s a compliment that sticks out, even as the
hype around him grows. Though Clarke appears
in the top five on mock NBA Draft boards in
2021, and his “end goal” is the NBA, he said he is
not rushing it, and he won’t say whether he’s try-
ing to be a one-and-done college player.
“I really want to go to a school that has a lot of
player development, get me ready for the NBA,”
he said. “But, I want something that’s outside of
school, like Duke has ‘The Brotherhood,’ or Ken-
tucky with all the players that have been there,
they’re all a family. I want a player-development
and a family-oriented school.”
No matter where the sport takes him, Clarke
says he wants to be appreciative of the journey.
He returns to Vine Street regularly because he
knows where he came from, and how Boston
helped make him better. If he does make it big, he
wants to return the favor.
“There’s kids out here that play basketball
[but are] never known because they never had
the opportunity,” he said. “I want to do a lot for
the community, [be] the guy the younger kids to
look up to and say, ‘I want to be like him, or bet-
ter.’ ”Deyscha Smith can be reached at
[email protected]. Follow her on Twitter
@deyschasmith.US loses to Serbia in worst showing ever
Atopprospect,Clarkereadyfornextstep
NG HAN GUAN/ASSOCIATED PRESSKemba Walker scored 18 points for the US in a 94-89 loss to Serbia at the World Cup.
MATTHEW J. LEE/GLOBE STAFF
Even in practice, there’s no stopping the 6-
foot-6-inch Clarke, the state’s top player.