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When Kyle Lofton played high school ball in northern New Jersey, he saw a number of teammates and opponents celebrated for scoring 1,000 career points. He never reached that milestone himself, and always wondered what it would feel like.
Last week Lofton – the former Putnam Science Academy star now running the point at St. Bonaventure – found out for himself when he scored on a backdoor layup to start the second half of a win over Fordham.
“I actually thought I needed one more basket,” said Lofton, the 45th player in program history to hit the mark. “I thought the floater I hit later on was it, but then I found out I already had it.
“It’s definitely a blessing. Having only seen people do it in high school, but now to do it myself at a much higher level, I’m just blessed.”
Lofton, a junior who has the Bonnies off to a 6-1 start and a spot atop the Atlantic 10 standings, followed up with a 28-point showing against Duquesne. Thus far he is averaging 15.4 points and 5.3 assists per game, while essentially never coming out. He’s averaging just under 38 minutes per game after leading the nation in minutes played last year.
“I always knew I could do this, I always had faith in my game, but this is honestly not the way I thought it was going to go,” said Lofton, who didn’t even have a Division II pout of high school. “I didn’t think I was going to have much of a role here as a freshman, but I had good workouts, good practices. Scraba (PSA associate head coach Josh Scraba) actually texted me one day and told me they were thinking about starting me so I needed to stay hungry and stay humble.
“And from there, things have just kind of taken off.”
Lofton was selected to the conference’s All-Rookie team as a freshman, then to the All-Conference First Team as a sophomore (and a preseason slight as a Second Team All-Conference pick). Despite being an unheralded player upon his arrival at PSA, Mustangs coach Tom Espinosa always had a good feeling about Lofton, and that was before he led PSA to its first national title in 2018.
“I knew he’d be good with the Bonnies. I really did,” said Espinosa, who added that Lofton is one of his personal favorites. “He was really good with us. He could really shoot it. The kid’s a worker. He’s a flat-out winner. He leads and people follow him. He carried what he did here onto the college level, and now he’s on the NBA’s radar.”
Lofton is aware of that last part but doesn’t let it change anything.
“Look, I was lucky to get found and end up at PSA,” he said. “Being at PSA, that got me from being nobody to people knowing my name because I was around a lot of really good players and we won.
“I just think about the things that are going to help my team. If we’re winning, I have to play well, and my teammates have to play well. We all have that mindset, that’s what we focus on. Everything else is just a blessing.”
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy
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