Neers Sign Minnesota's 2010 Mr. Basketball

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Kevin Noreen, who was named Minnesota’s Mr. Basketball for 2010, has signed a grant-in-aid to attend West Virginia University in 2010-11 and play basketball for the Mountaineers, coach Bob Huggins announced today.


“We are really excited about getting a player of Kevin’s caliber this late in the process,” says Huggins. “Kevin is a multi-skilled player who will fit in our system extremely well. With our abundance of physical low post players, Kevin’s skill set should prove very valuable for our team’s future.”

Noreen is a 6-foot-10, 220-pound forward from Minneapolis, where he attended Minnesota Transitions Charter School. As a senior, he averaged 38.6 points, 16.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 3.9 steals and 3.2 blocks per game for coach John Sherman.

Noreen guided his team to the 2010 Class A state championship, scoring 24 points with 15 rebounds and nine blocks against Sebeka in the state title contest. For his efforts, he was named to the all-state tournament team. He also had games of 22 points, 22 rebounds against Cass Lake-Bena and 17 points and 11 rebounds against Rushford-Peterson during the state playoffs.

He is the all-time scoring leader in Minnesota high school history, scoring 4,086 career points. As a senior, Noreen had 14 games of more than 40 points, including seven when he scored 50 or more points. He had 1,205 points last year, his third straight 1,000-point season.

Noreen earned first team all-state honors as a senior and second-team honors as a junior. As a senior, he was named the Minneapolis Star-Tribune Player of the Year.

As a junior, Noreen averaged 32.8 points, 12.4 rebounds, 5.5 steals and 4.8 assists while shooting 66 percent from the field. He played AAU basketball for the Minnesota Pump N Run.

Noreen joins Noah Cottrill (Logan High, Logan, W.Va.), David Nyarsuk (Mountain State Academy, Beckley, W.Va., native of Juba, Sudan) and Darrious Curry (Stratford High, Houston, Texas) as signees for the 2010-11 season