Darnell Rogers proved he belonged this summer

Indian Land’s Darnell Rogers has dominated South Carolina 2A high school basketball the last two years, earning The Herald’s All-Area player of the year and All-State honors each season despite lacking the one attribute most basketball players are recognized for: height.

This summer, the 5-foot-2 guard shifted from an interesting oddity, lighting up scoreboards in Cheraw and Pageland, to a legitimate college basketball prospect playing for the CP3 All-Stars – a team run and coached by NBA star Chris Paul.

Could Rogers hold his own against the top high school basketball talent in the country? Could he impress under the microscope of college coaches?

“It went pretty good. It could have been better,” said his father, Shawnta Rogers, offering the typical dad answer. “He could have performed better. I’ve always got high expectations for him.”

Dad might have been a little harsh. By most accounts Rogers held his own this summer, playing in the Elite Youth Basketball League, the highest level of AAU competition.

It helped that Rogers played with Harry Giles – 6-foot-10 and the top-rated 2016 recruit in the country. Rogers’ CP3 backcourt mate, Alterique Gilbert, is considered one of the best guards in the country and recently committed to Connecticut. While the team was coached regularly by Jon Adams, Paul came in later in the summer to help guide the team.

“It’s very humbling having someone like him being able to coach us,” said Rogers. “Everything he says, I listen to because I know he knows the game very well. Everything he says has a point to it. I can relate to everything he says to me because he’s small like me.”

Grant Williams, a 6-foot-7 Div. I prospect, said Rogers experienced the most height-based disrespect in their team’s EYBL opener in May.

“Nobody thought that Darnell could play against EYBL players, the stronger point guards in the nation,” said Williams.

Playing against Team Penny from Tennessee, Rogers stepped up in the second half, finishing with 29 points, hitting 4-of-7 3-pointers and all 13 of his free-throw attempts. Team Penny guards couldn’t keep up with the speedster, who repeatedly got to the foul line.

“So, he kind of shut up the haters ever since then,” Williams said. “People still judge him, but next thing you know he’s got 10 straight points and they’re like, ‘oh wow, what do we do?’”

Rogers finished the summer with nine more double-digit games and also had 74 assists and 34 turnovers. Rogers got into foul trouble in four of the 22 games, and averaged one steal per game.

He was most proud of his defense because it’s the area of his game where critics doubt him most.

“No one ever scored over 12 points on me,” Rogers said, “so I think I did good. I never let anyone score on me really easy. Nobody ever cooked me.”

Rogers’ harrying defense shifts his size from of an attribute to exploit, into an advantage.

“A lot of colleges don’t like when their players force the tempo,” he said. “It gets them out of their offense, so that’s what I really try to do, is get people to rush their shots and make bad decisions with the ball. I felt like I did that this summer.”

The Team Penny outburst wasn’t the first time Shawnta Rogers – a 5-foot-4 standout point guard at George Washington University – saw his son turn doubters into believers.

“That’s all he has to do, is be himself,” Shawnta said. “He knows how to play the game, so he doesn’t have to worry about who’s gonna be in the gym. His I.Q. is good enough to play with anybody. So he’s just got to play the game.”

The comparisons with Muggsy Bogues are understandable.

Both Rogers and the former Charlotte Hornets point guard are shorter than 5-foot-4, and both are proud Baltimore natives. Both have had to defend bigger guards by thinking one or two moves ahead, getting low to the floor and sneaking in to poke the ball away. Both had to be fearless with the basketball, driving foul lanes populated by skyscrapers.

“(Darnell) gets to the basket with his speed,” Williams said. “He and-ones me and Harry (Giles) in practice all the time and we get so confused by it.”

Rogers’ ability is unquestionable, and all he wants is a chance to prove that at the college level. It’s a chance his dad got at George Washington, where he averaged 16 points, 5.3 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 2.9 steals per game over a three-year period in the late 1990s. That success led Shawnta to a lengthy and successful career overseas.

A 1999 Los Angeles Times story about Shawnta said, “Scouts... love the way Rogers is unafraid to drive in the lane among the trees, then make a last-minute, airborne, body-swivel that gives him just enough daylight to sink his shot.” The piece could have been about Darnell.

“All I can say is… look at my numbers,” Shawnta said. “Look at how I played; did it really matter? I’m not looking at it like ‘I wish I was a little bit taller,’ and I don’t want him doing that either.

“He’s got to take what he’s got, and roll with it.”

Besides, Darnell Rogers already has one believer in his corner that trumps most, if not all, doubters.

“I’m probably one of his biggest fans,” Chris Paul said in a CBSSports.com story about Rogers earlier this summer. “I’m not as undersized as he is, but I’m one of the biggest believers that it’s all about your heart, not your size. I brag about him to my teammates all the time.”

All the testimony in the world won’t get college coaches to bite, though, if they don’t believe in Rogers themselves. A number of schools are intrigued and Rogers has scholarship offers from George Washington, Maryland-Eastern Shore, Towson and most recently, from Siena.

Adding to that list wasn’t necessarily one of Rogers’ primary goals this EYBL season.

“My attitude was to win every game possible, and just to prove that I belong in high-major D-I schools, competing against the best,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been doing for so long. I had to prove to everyone that my height didn’t matter.”

It’s a never-ending pursuit that he’ll continue this winter at a new school. Rogers is transferring to Shiloh High School in Atlanta. Why the change?

“Better competition,” said Rogers, whose coach at Shiloh is also from Baltimore. “It’s in 6A so we play a lot of good teams and a few of my teammates from my AAU team go there so it’ll be a great experience. I know he’ll push me to make me better and I need that for college.”

Rogers will make his college decision within the next six months, largely based off the success of the last three months, where he’ll inherit a new batch of doubters.

“(EYBL) did a lot for my confidence because now I know I actually have a chance of going to the NBA. I was playing against the top-ranked players in my class and I performed very well,” he said. “I’m just ready to keep on pushing through it and go to college and do what I’ve got to do and hopefully make a career out of basketball.”

This story was originally published August 1, 2015 at 2:28 PM with the headline "Darnell Rogers proved he belonged this summer."