Honoring finest on the floor
Baylor signee’s record-setting production fueled unbeaten run in district play
Cryer, Hunter lead All-Greater Houston basketball teams.
Morton Ranch head coach Khris Turner calls senior LJ Cryer a once in a lifetime player to coach. Cryer proved that much in 2019-20 when the team needed him to be even more extraordinary than usual.
Cryer, the All-Greater Houston boys basketball player of the year, averaged 34.2 points on 55 percent shooting from the field and 44 percent from the 3-point line. He also had 5.3 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 2.4 steals per game in helping Morton Ranch to its best playoff run with a Class 6A Region III semifinal appearance.
Cryer, who has signed with Baylor, owns every scoring record for a Morton Ranch program that had never realized massive success until his senior class showed up on campus. He finished this season with 1,164 total points and scored 3,488 in his career, which ranks fifth all-time in Texas public schools and tops for Houston area public schools.
“LJ has brought a different mentality to our program,” Turner said. “He is a program changer. He brought a sense of competition in every aspect of the program — scoring, defense and academics. To be able to coach a player at his level was initially intimidating, but he has prepared us for every level of player that could come after. He helped put Morton Ranch High School on the map. He led by doing, not by talking. He’s a prime example of hard work paying off.”
Q: It feels like Morton Ranch had a tale of two or three season in 2019-20. How would you describe it?
A: “I feel like we fought the whole year. At the beginning of the season, we didn’t come out as strong as we should have. So, as the year went on, we just progressed and started playing better as a team. We faced a lot of adversity with injuries, but we just pushed through. We didn’t want to lose in the playoffs, but that was the farthest we ever made it in school history, so it was still an accomplishment.”
Q: The most noteworthy injury this year was the loss of TCU commit Eddie Lampkin for part of the year. What did you have to change in order to keep winning without his presence?
A: “Just knowing that he wasn’t playing, I knew my team was going to need me to step up big this year because we lost another scoring option and one of our best players. I was just in the gym all day, every day to try to put my team in the best position. As far as the slow start, we knew we didn’t have Ed, so we all had to come together and bond off the court and that helped carry on the court.”
Q: How did it change the way defenses played you?
A: “I’ve never seen so many looks in my life like that. It was like a different look every game. I just had to make sure I came out locked in because I knew that they were going to send one, two people at me. We just had to adjust and play a little faster because we were undersized. We just had to play at a faster tempo to outrun teams because we didn’t have as much size as the other teams.”
Q: Morton Ranch still went undefeated in district play this year. What does it mean to you to accomplish that in your senior season?
A: “I expected to win district because I have confidence in our guys. We went undefeated the past year and I was expecting to do that again. Just knowing that we did accomplish that with all those teams giving us their best shot in every game is big.”
Q: You and your senior teammates changed the narrative for Morton Ranch basketball. What does that mean to you?
A: “From day one when I walked in that gym at that school, the year they came off before I got there was pretty bad. Just going in there with a couple other freshmen, I just had the mindset that we had to change the culture. I feel like we did that over the past four years and hopefully the guys that will be there next year carry that on.”
Q: You cite Sam Houston product and current SMU guard Kendric Davis, who you also played against in the playoffs, as someone you watched and admired. Who else did you watch in the high school scene throughout the years?
A: “I watched (Cypress Lakes graduated and current Sacramento Kings guard De’Aaron Fox) a lot and then I watched (Atascocita guard and current Boston Celtics guard) Carsen Edwards a lot. You can always add to your game so I pay close attention to what those guys do well so I could try to get a complete overall game myself. That’s just what you have to do if you want to be a great player.”
Q: You’re joining a Baylor program that was No. 1 in the country for much of the year. Does that make the next step even more exciting for you?
A: “Most definitely because I know I’m coming into a winning program. The guys play really hard. They play for each other. Being around people like that, I feel like is only going to help me and boost my game.”
Q: Is playing early part of your early goals at Baylor?
A: “I want to play, but he can’t promise any playing time. I have to go in there and earn it. I expect to play, but I’ll go in there and bust my tail to get that playing time.”
Q: What led to signing with Baylor?
A: “I started building a relationship with them when I was in eighth grade. So that was big. Just the family-like atmosphere and it’s a Christian school. It’s not too far from home. I just feel like it was the perfect fit.”