After sudden ending at St. John's, Lucas Walford's basketball career keeps taking unexpected turns

All the wondrous battles that St. John's and St. Thomas had waged on athletic fields and arenas for more than a century would be capsulized in a meeting of excellence on March 14, 2020, inside the Johnnies' Sexton Arena.

The basketball teams already had met three times, with St. John's winning twice. They now would be meeting in the Round of 16 in the Division III men's basketball tournament.

"Tickets went on sale and the game sold out in eight minutes,'' said Pat McKenzie, the Johnnies coach.

The Johnnies were 27-2 and rated No. 2 in the nation. The Tommies were 26-3 and rated No. 4.

And then it was announced on March 11 that Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz had tested positive for COVID-19. The NBA ordered a shutdown. The rest of American sports followed, including the cancellation of the NCAA basketball tournaments.

"The atmosphere early in the week for that game was crazy,'' said Lucas Walford, a standout senior forward for the Johnnies. "It was going to be my last chance to play the Tommies, in front of a wild home crowd, and with both teams believing they had a chance to win the national championship.''

Thump! No game. No rest of a final college season. No idea where COVID-19 was headed.

"Until then, I don't think Lucas had any idea about trying to keep playing,'' McKenzie said. "He was going to get his degree and get into the job market. But the letdown of not being able to finish the season …

"I don't think he wanted basketball to end like that for him.''

That was one reason Walford tried to find a pro team in Europe. This was the other: "The job market disappeared because of COVID,'' he said this week.

'Smart as it gets'

Walford made a deal to play for the Drogheda Wolves in the Irish pro league. "I got there in September [2020], another COVID wave rolled into Ireland and the season was canceled,'' he said.

He stayed in Drogheda and started working toward a master's through the Dundalk Institute of Technology. The following March, he detected a lump. He walked two minutes down the street to a town doctor.

"The doctor said, 'It's probably nothing, but we'll take a blood test,' " Walford said.

It was testicular cancer. Walford returned to his parents' home — a New Prague High graduate with an Elko address — and headed to Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

Starting in May 2021, there was surgery and chemo. In the middle of August, cancer was detected in an abdominal lymph node.

Another surgery. Three weeks of chemo, seven hours a day.

"Through it all, I was assured my diagnosis was good and this was very treatable,'' Walford said. "I lost a lot of strength. I lost my hair. I felt crappy, but there was never the thought, 'I'm going to die.' "

The scans were clean by late 2021. He returned to Drogheda in January 2022. He played "10 or 11'' games before the season ended.

Walford played last summer in the Twin Cities Pro-Am League. As a 6-8 forward, he landed a job with KK Šenčur, a well-known pro team in Slovenia, for the 2022-23 season.

"That was a legitimate pro league, and playing very good teams from other countries,'' Walford said. "I thought the language would be a bigger problem. Many people there speak English, and they were very welcoming to Americans.''

McKenzie offered this scouting report on Walford's appeal to post-collegiate scouts:

"Lucas is as smart as it gets. He shows up and takes on the task at hand – whether it's basketball or cancer. He set the competitive tone for some outstanding teams here.

"We look at the measurables here, and in those — wingspan, height, vertical — he's Andrew Wiggins. Not the freakish athlete that's Wiggins, but very athletic for a strong forward.''

Keeping degree handy

Walford is playing in the pro-am league again this summer. No surprise, his teammates include Jubie Alade, a multi-year teammate at St. John's and also with the Drogheda Wolves.

"We're called EC Playaz; don't know why, but we have a good club,'' Walford said. "We lost in the final last summer to Team Tyus, with both Tyus and Tre [Jones]. We're good again … and if David Roddy is with us after he gets back from NBA summer league, even better.

"I'm looking at options for this basketball season. It will have to be a good offer, or I'll have to try to finally use my math degree to get a job.''

Walford has become something of a role model for fighting cancer in the New Prague basketball world.

Last winter, Spencer LaRue, the senior center for the high school team, was diagnosed with cancer similar to Walford's.

"I met Spencer a couple of times,'' Walford said. "Treatment went great for him and he's 100 percent.''

In 2021, Mason Decker, an eighth-grader competing in football, basketball and track, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He missed an entire school year undergoing treatment from Mayo Clinic. Last summer, he went to Minneapolis to watch Walford play a couple of pro-am games.

Mason is in remission now but is still taking treatments until January.

"I can't play football because of the portal for the meds on my chest,'' he said. "I'm playing summer league basketball right now. Busy schedule, but I'd like to see Lucas Walford in the pro-am league again. That's entertaining basketball."

Plus, those New Prague basketball-playing cancer battlers can take inspiration from one another.