NOTHING but NET Former Shaler basketball star Geno Thorpe still chases his dreams. BY DAVID GOLEBIEWSKI
INPERSON
Photo courtesy of University of South Florida Athletics.
NOTHING but NET Former Shaler basketball star Geno Thorpe still chases his dreams. BY DAVID GOLEBIEWSKI
Geno Thorpe suited up for the Shaler Titans boys’ basketball team during the halcyon days of the program. After playing for Shadyside Academy as a freshman, the 6 ' 4 " guard transferred to Shaler High School and blossomed into one of the top playmakers in Pennsylvania.
Thorpe netted more than 1,000 points from 2011 to 2013, leading the Titans to a pair of Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League( WPIAL) section titles and a first-ever appearance in the quarterfinals of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association( PIAA) playoffs during his junior year.
“ My high school team at Shaler was everybody that I went to elementary school with,” Thorpe recalls.“ We all knew one another a really, really long time. Everybody in the community supported us and the basketball team. We were just a high school team, but we felt like an NBA team. Everybody cared that much about our games.”
Thorpe, now a junior at the University of South Florida, is still racking up points and making the Shaler community proud. His hoop dreams, which have taken him from Happy Valley to Tampa, could continue at the professional level after he wraps up his college career.
A latecomer to the game( he didn’ t start playing basketball until fourth grade, and didn’ t invest serious time in it until seventh grade), Thorpe came of age while the University of Pittsburgh men’ s basketball
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