Hopefully everyone witnessed at least one men’s

basketball game this season, because now its over.

The 2002-03 season will be remembered as the Henry Domercant farewell Tour. Although head coach Rick Samuels might have tried to play down his star guard to promote a team concept, this was Henry’s year.

Domercant passed up ’80s phenom Jay Taylor as Eastern’s all-time leading scorer in early December. After scoring 40 points in a pair of games, he exploded against Tennessee Tech for 46 points in the last regular season game of his collegiate career.

Domercant’s name has become synonymous with Eastern. When I go home and tell people I attend Eastern, the most common question that follows is, “don’t they have that Domercant guy on the basketball team? I hear he’s good.”

Yes, he is good. He’s one of the best pure shooters in the nation. He can pull up from nearly anywhere on the court and find the bottom of the net three or four times out of five chances.

Henry is so good he has a legitimate chance of playing in the NBA. For some schools, having a player on the basketball team considered good enough to play in the NBA is a regular thing, but not at schools Eastern’s size.

Look at three Eastern players prior to the ‘Oh’ Henry’ days. Kevin Duckworth, the aforementioned Taylor and Kyle ‘the Thrill’ Hill.

Duckworth, who wore a Panther jersey from 1981 to 1986, had the most successful professional career of any Eastern player, but oddly enough he didn’t have a very successful college career. Sadly, the most recognizable name in Eastern history is a player few associate with the school. Perhaps it’s for the best considering Duckworth might be best remembered for playing with Portland in the 1992 NBA Finals when Michael Jordan and the Bulls stampeded over the Trailblazers.

Taylor had a brief career in the NBA, but he didn’t get into the league the way Domercant hopes to. Taylor was an undrafted free-agent signing by the New Jersey Nets, opposed to Domercant who hopes to hear his name called at the NBA Draft this summer. Taylor bounced around with a few teams, but never received much playing time.

Hill, the most recent of the three, played alongside Domercant for two seasons — or shall we say Domercant played alongside Hill.

Domercant watched Hill’s sophomore season from the bench in 1998-99 season while he redshirted. Then as a redshirt freshman, Domercant came off the bench behind Hill. Then Domercant and Hill became one of the best tandems in NCAA history when Hill finished second in the nation in scoring and Domercant finished fourth.

Despite his success, Hill did not necessarily have what it takes to play in the NBA.

He was drafted by Dallas, but wound up playing professional basketball in Europe.

Will this be Domercant’s fate? We will have to wait till this summer to find out what’s the next chapter in the Henry Domercant story. But while we wait, we’ll wish we could have watched Henry play in a couple more games in a Panther uniform.