After sitting out two and a half seasons, Colton Lawrence’s hoop dreams are coming true. On Monday afternoon, the former Bentley basketball player announced that he would take his talents to UMBC and it has become a family affair.
“His (Jim Ferry’s) style of basketball is what I’m used to,” Lawrence told The Portal Report, “I could immediately tell that he was a great dude. He (Ferry) seems like a great dad and that extended across the whole staff.”
Getting back to the word “dad,” someone on that UMBC staff calls the head coach of Bentley just that. Danny Lawson not only played at Bentley but is the son of Jay Lawson, the head coach of the Falcons. Danny is entering his second season on the UMBC staff.
“I obviously have a very good relationship with Coach Lawson as well. They know my game pretty well, they’ve followed Bentley basketball for a while,” Lawrence said.
Lawson obviously knows about the trials and tribulations that Lawrence has gone through in his time at Bentley, missing out on almost all action from November 2019 to January 2022.
He broke his fifth metatarsal in his foot and tried to let it heal. It obviously broke again and he had to get surgery, sitting out for the remainder of the 2019-20 season.
After that, COVID-19 ravaged the world and the NE10 didn’t play in 2020-21.
The bad breaks wouldn’t stop there for Lawrence as this past year his planter fasci had a partial tear out of nowhere. He played three of the first five games of the season but sat out the whole month of December, missing ten games. Two injuries on the same foot, completely unrelated.
“That was probably the toughest thing that I’ve had to deal with less far is finally getting back, having a good couple of games. Feeling like I was getting into rhythm,” Lawrence said.
He pushed and scored double digits in his first four games back. In mid-February, he scored a career-high 32 points against Southern New Hampshire University. Then on March 6th, he captured his first conference tournament title as the Falcons beat Bentley University. It was one of a couple of titles that they had this season that also included a trip to the Division 2 Elite Eight.
“Being able to experience that with them, that was very special. That’s kinda why I feel that I’m ready to leave, even though it’s bittersweet,” said Lawrence.
Lawrence will make the jump to D1 with a 43.6% three-point percentage last season. The type of player he is will remind a lot of Retriever fans of Joe Sherburne. Hopefully, he can produce like him and send the big dawgs back to their first NCAA Tournament since 2018.
