Before Manhattan broke a ten-year NCAA Tournament drought this past March when Steve Masiello led the Jaspers to a MAAC championship and near-upset of Louisville, the northwest corner of the Bronx was still buzzing with the ghost of Luis Flores, the Dominican scoring machine who was the centerpiece of the back-to-back MAAC championship teams Bobby Gonzalez led out of Riverdale to become the crown princes of New York in the mid-2000s.
Today, Flores was finally recognized for his accomplishments, headlining an eight-member group that becomes the Manhattan College Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2014.
The Jaspers' all-time leading scorer after he was recruited from Rutgers, Flores was also a two-time MAAC Player of the Year and Haggerty Award winner as the best player in the New York metropolitan area when Manhattan reached the NCAA Tournament in 2003 and 2004, narrowly losing to Syracuse before returning one year later and upsetting No. 5 seed Florida and Billy Donovan before being eclipsed by Wake Forest in the Round of 32. This will be the second notable accolade Flores, once a second-round pick of the Houston Rockets in the 2004 NBA Draft, has received within the last year, as he was also elected Manhattan's representative in the MAAC Honor Roll this past March.
The Jasper basketball program landed a second inductee this year, as former head coach Steve Lappas joins Flores among the octet of honorees. In four years at the helm before departing for Villanova, Lappas guided Manhattan to the school's first-ever MAAC championship game appearance in 1992, also reaching the quarterfinals of the National Invitation Tournament.
Manhattan's Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place on Saturday, November 8 on the Riverdale campus. More information on the event can be found by clicking here.
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