Photography by Tony Lewis, Jr.
This Annapolis Area Christian School senior basketballer has garnered national attention
Annapolis Area Christian School senior basketball standout Elijah Croskey plays fast and above the rim. It’s his ability to dunk the basketball that has garnered him national attention.
In late April, playing for his Howard County-based AAU Top Tier team in a tournament against a team from New Jersey, Croskey had two eye-catching dunks on two different players. It was such a big deal since Croskey—who is a three-sport athlete—stands 5-foot-10. The players he surprised were 6-foot-2 and 6-foot-5.
A tournament official posted the dunks on Instagram and the attention the two videos received was unbelievable, Croskey says. The videos received a whopping 67,000 likes.
“The gym was electric,” Croskey recalls. “They weren’t expecting the dunks at my height. And the team we were playing was one of the better ones in the country.”
Besides his 38-inch vertical jump, he is probably one of the fastest basketball players in Maryland. He won the 400-meter individual dash in May and ran a leg on the first-place 400 relay team in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Conference B Championships.
“Trying to guard me with my quick first step and the moves I have is pretty tough,” says Croskey, who has also played soccer for AACS.
Croskey’s athletic ability and speed has made him a coveted player among Division II and Division III college coaches. He’s been aggressively recruited by seven schools: Goucher, Greensboro, and Hood colleges, Morehead State, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, Catholic University, and St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
AAU Top Tier Coach Ken Alford says he expects more schools to pursue Croskey as his senior year goes along. He averaged 22 points per game for his high school team last winter and 20 points for his AAU team, whose season runs from April to August.
Playing AAU basketball Top Tier for four years has helped Croskey blossom as a player. He has played in seven or eight national-caliber tournaments every year in places such as Kansas, Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina, and along with several mid-Atlantic states.
“His athleticism is second to none,” Alford says. “I have been coaching for more than 10 years. He is not the biggest guy, but he is one of the most athletic players I have ever worked with, I think he is a lower-level Division I type of player. I have seen enough players to know.”
Alford likes to sit back and watch Croskey run past players for easy layups. He scores a lot of his points that way and he’s that hard to defend and game-plan against. “He has a quick first step and guys can’t stay in front of him,” Alford says. “He surprises guys. Once he starts to go, if you don’t judge him correctly, you are basically done.”
With the AAU season behind him, the 17-year-old Croskey wants to put together another great year for AACS, which starts its season in November. Besides his high point totals, he averaged five rebounds and three assists while earning MIAA B Conference honors.
“He is one of those guys that has the ‘It factor’,” AACS Boys Basketball Coach Doug Scheidt says. “He is a great open-court player and great at taking the ball to the hole. If he gets a step on you, it’s very difficult to recover. He also goes through guys. And physically a lot stronger than he appears.”
His performance in one game highlights the impact he can have on an opponent.
The 17-year-old Croskey, a combo guard and two-year starter who weighs 160 pounds, scored a career-high 40 points and grabbed eight rebounds in a rout of rival Indian Creek on February 7th.
“His humility is one of his biggest assets,” Scheidt says of a player who averaged 13 points, five rebounds, and four assists last season. “He is a big-time player, but you wouldn’t know it by the way he carries himself and acts. He doesn’t think of himself as better than his teammates.”
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