Sincere Parker outscores NIC-10 greats Veasley, Meeks, Thoren in NCAAs

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One person stands between Fred VanVleet and Chad Gallagher.

Sincere Parker.

The former East star averaged 14.5 points in two NCAA tournament games for McNeese State last week. That’s the second-highest total by a former Rockford high school player in 30 years, trailing only former Auburn star Fred VanVleet’s 23-point average his junior year in three NCAA games for Wichita State in 2015. And even VanVleet, an NBA champion and All-Star, topped Parker’s average only once in his four trips to the NCAAs with Wichita State.

“That speaks for itself,” Parker said Wednesday in a phone interview with the Register Star. “I just have to keep working and hopefully I can get to where he is someday, playing professional ball and helping people and little kids around the city like I was.”

More: Sincere lessons: Basketball is a business

Parker scored 12 points as No. 12 seed McNeese State rolled to a 24-point lead in a 69-67 opening-round upset over No. 5 seed Clemson. He followed that up with a team-high 17 points in a second-round 76-62 loss to No. 4 Purdue.

Boylan’s Chad Gallagher, who averaged 17.5 points in two games for Creighton in 1991, is the only other Rockford player to win an NCAA game and average more points than Parker in the tournament in almost 70 years. Guilford’s Dale Greenlee averaged 11.3 points for a Kansas Final Four team, but that was 50 years ago. Freeport’s Willie Veasley (Butler) and Jamal Meeks (Indiana) both started for Final Four teams, but Veasley averaged only seven points and Meeks 3.4 in those tourney runs.

Even Skip Thoren, a member of the Illini All-Century Team and picked the second-greatest basketball player in Rockford history behind VanVleet, never did that in the NCAA tournament. Thoren still holds the fifth-highest scoring average in Illini history (22.2 points as a senior) and ranks No. 1 and 2 in rebounds (13.8 and 14.5 in 1964 and 1965). But the 6-8 center from Rockford East  averaged just nine points in his two NCAA games against…

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Source link : https://www.rrstar.com/story/sports/college/basketball/2025/03/27/sincere-parkers-ncaa-showing-for-mcneese-state-2nd-to-fred-vanvleet-in-30-years-by-rockford-player/82515439007/

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Publish date : 2025-03-27 08:02:00

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