Kentucky, be warned: Stony Brook's Warney can play

Des Moines – Stony Brook senior forward Jameel Warney is probably pretty far off the average college basketball fan's radar. It's understandable. The Seawolves play in a 4,000-seat arena in tiny Stony Brook, N.Y., population 13,000. But things could be different.

Stony Brook and Rider University were the first schools to take notice of Warney, but after a breakout AAU game the summer before his senior season at Roselle Catholic in New Jersey, his recruitment began to blow up. Among the schools interested were Iowa, Villanova, Notre Dame and Tennessee. Warney chose Stony Brook anyway, and in the last four years, he has thrived there, earning America East Player of the Year three times and Defensive Player of the Year twice. He's a finalist for the Karl Malone Award, given to the nation's top forward.

Stony Brook will need everything Warney has against Kentucky; their first-round matchup is at 8:40 p.m. Thursday.

Warney, averaging 19.8 points, 10.7 rebounds and shooting 63.7 percent from the field, appears to be peaking at the right time. He put up a school-record 43 points in the America East tournament title game that sent the Seawolves to the NCAA tournament for the first time, two games after recording 27 points and 23 rebounds in the league tournament opener.

Not rooting for him yet? He also has displayed a fun sense of humor, tweeting a dedication every game to Mark Morrison, the one-hit-wonder singer of the mid-1990s song "Return of the Mack."

Amelia Rayno