Winthrop’s Keon Moore gets Portsmouth Invitational chance

A phone call late Tuesday night prompted Winthrop’s Keon Moore to hop in a car with friend Casey Sorrell and drive to Portsmouth, Va.

Moore was invited to the Portsmouth Invitational, a prestigious pre-NBA Draft camp that allows college basketball players to show off their wares in front of pro basketball management. Moore was thankful to have Sorrell driving him, but said he would have walked if necessary.

“I was sitting on the couch last night and got a call at, like, 10’o’clock,” said Moore. “I was pretty excited.”

Moore landed a spot – only 64 players from college basketball are invited – when Dayton’s Jordan Sibert pulled out of the event for an unclear reason. Moore heard it had something to do with a missed flight, and joked that he’ll be sending Sibert a Christmas card. The event has extra meaning for Moore, who grew up in nearby Bertie County over the border in North Carolina and watched his friend Kent Bazemore excel at the PIT and land on an NBA roster accordingly.

“A lot of people might not know about it, but I know almost everything there is to know about it,” said Moore, who was able to stop by Windsor, N.C., and see some of his family on the way. “Ever since then, that has always been something I thought about, the route that he had to take to get to where he is now. I knew I wasn’t at a Duke or a Carolina where if you play well you’re a first round pick. I knew an opportunity like this would be something that would help me get on a big stage.”

Moore, a 6-foot-5, 190-pound redshirt senior, was a first team All-Big South selection this season after producing one of the best individual seasons in Winthrop’s Div. I basketball history. Moore averaged 18.5 points and set single season Div. I school records for points, Big South scoring average, overall scoring average, and 3-pointers made. Moore was also the only player who ranked in the conference’s top-five in scoring, free-throw percentage, 3-point field goals per game and 3-point field goal percentage, all indicative of his pure shooting abilities.

Five hours in the car with Sorrell could have allowed plenty of nerves to foment in Moore’s gut. But he said he doesn’t feel that way.

“This is the first time I’ve ever had the opportunity to play against some great competition and guys that have played and done well at really good universities and big-time programs, so just to have this opportunity to play with them and better myself in front of a lot of scouts is amazing,” Moore said. “I guess I’m more anxious than anything.”

Other Winthrop players invited to the Portsmouth Invitational include Torrell Martin and Craig Bradshaw. Neither of those players were drafted by an NBA team, but both went on to lengthy and successful professional careers overseas. Martin is still playing in France.

The PIT runs through Saturday. Moore, who is on the same Portsmouth Sports Club team as Charleston Southern’s Big South player of the year point guard Saah Nimley, plays his first game Thursday night at 7 p.m.

Regardless of the tournament’s brevity, Moore knows the value of any impression made. His friend from Bertie High School, Bazemore, left one on NBA scouts. He went undrafted out of Old Dominion in 2012, but landed with the Golden State Warriors’ summer league team that year and impressed sufficiently enough to sign with them, before joining the Atlanta Hawks last summer and becoming a key reserve for one of the NBA’s top teams.

Bazemore said in a Newport News Daily Press article from the 2012 Portsmouth Invitational, “I love the game of basketball. I’ll chase that ball anywhere it goes.”

Sounds like another Bertie County kid, one willing to walk five hours just for a shot. The seeds of Bazemore’s NBA dream were cultivated at the Portsmouth Invitational, and Moore won’t forget that.

“I know I appreciate it more than anybody that’s gonna be there, because this is something that doesn’t happen,” said Moore, in a car, about an hour away from the chance of a life.

This story was originally published April 8, 2015 at 11:43 AM with the headline "Winthrop’s Keon Moore gets Portsmouth Invitational chance."