Ethan Morton has been competing at the highest level of college basketball for several years now.
The WPIAL product, coming from Butler Area HS, spent four seasons at Purdue, playing in 132 games as a Boilermaker before transferring this spring. Morton decided to take his talents to Colorado State, a program that has qualified for two NCAA Tournaments in the past three years.
Morton never averaged more than 3.8 points per game in his career at Purdue, but was a part of several highly-touted teams in West Lafayette, Indiana. Morton’s Boilermakers were a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament in each of his years there. He made runs to the Sweet 16 and later the national championship game (this year) and was also upset twice in the first round.
Morton won the Gatorade Player of the Year award as a senior for boys basketball in Pennsylvania after averaging 23.4 points, 13 rebounds and 8.3 assists per game that season.
”It’s a great honor to receive an award like this, especially when you see all the outstanding players who have won it in the past,” Morton tells Pittsburgh Sports Now. “That is something I will never take for granted and always cherish. It wouldn’t have been possible without my teammates, we all played together and for each other this year with so much love and passion.”
”Hopefully we get a chance to continue our season at some point soon. Also without Coach Clement and the rest of the staff this never would of happened. They have always pushed me and put in great positions to succeed, but most of all they always believed and trusted in me. Finally, the community has been amazing this year and without their constant support our season would’ve been much different.”
By winning this award, Morton is now a candidate for the Gatorade Boys Basketball National Player of the Year, which has been won by future NBA stars such as Jason Kidd (1992), Paul Pierce (1995), Chris Bosh (2002) and Karl-Anthony Towns (2013, 2014).
The last two Gatorade Pennsylvania Player of the Year winners were Kennedy Catholic’s Oscar Tshiebwe, who went on to play for West Virginia and Mars’ Robby Carmody, who’s playing for Notre Dame.
Morton and Butler won the WPIAL Class 6A title last month are were currently still playing for the PIAA Class 6A title before the coronavirus pandemic shutdown all sports activities.
Gone and forgotten.
Young man made some bad decisions. Should have stayed home and played for the panthers. Nothing worse than wasted talent. H2P.💙💛
Right. He should have stayed home and played for the Panthers and missed the NCAA tournament 3 out of 4 years instead of playing on a national championship contender all 4 years at a top-notch academic institution. Such a bad decision. The people on this board. 🙄