Game linking Syracuse basketball legend Lawrence Moten’s 2 hometowns became moment his absence hit hardest

Syracuse, N.Y. — The game was meant to celebrate the bridge between two cities that shaped Lawrence Moten. Instead, it became the moment the void he left behind felt unbearable.

Digital Pioneers Academy forward Ethan Mekhi-Bennings had not cried in years. That streak ended Saturday in the Nottingham High gym, the same court Moten once haunted as a Syracuse schoolboy star and later prowled as a mentor. When the public-address system fell silent and the scoreboard flickered with images of Moten—Syracuse’s all-time leading scorer with 2,334 points—Mekhi-Bennings crumpled into sobs.

“I couldn’t move,” the senior said. “I told them I wasn’t playing. It was too heavy.”

The matchup between DPA and Nottingham had been arranged by Moten this summer after he left Central New York to become general manager of the Washington charter school’s basketball program. He wanted a showcase linking his birthplace and the city whose orange he wore for four record-setting college seasons. Neither school considered canceling after Moten, 53, was found dead in his District home in late September.

Both rosters took the floor in orange-and-white shirts bearing “Poetry 21” across the chest and “Moten 2,334” on the back—an order placed by DPA founder Mashea Ashton and shipped north. Nottingham head coach Lamar Kearse reminded his Bulldogs that Moten’s seat along the baseline, once a constant, now sits empty. “He talked to us about more than basketball,” Kearse said. “Mental approach, life after the game—he gave us pieces of himself every visit.”

Before tip-off, Moten’s high-school teammate and current DPA athletic director Rob Harris addressed the crowd, followed by Lazarus Sims, the point guard who fed Moten countless baskets at Syracuse. A moment of silence followed the video tribute. That is when Mekhi-Bennings, who shared Moten’s jersey number and slashing style, finally released months of grief.

Coaches implored him: Moten would not want tears to bench him. Play for him. He wiped his face, laced his sneakers and logged every minute of a 54-37 loss led by Nottingham’s Bol Garang (26 points) and Dei’Avion Camby (15).

The result felt secondary. DPA endured a Friday flight change and a Saturday bus that refused to start in minus-21 wind chill just to keep the appointment. Harris hopes to reciprocate next season, inviting Nottingham to Washington so the series—and Moten’s vision—endures.

“Lawrence wanted nobody left out,” Harris said. “Division I, Division III, trade school—he cared about every kid in the gym.”

Across Syracuse, clinics and open gyms have missed that familiar baritone greeting and easy handshake this winter. “He’d walk in like he owned the place,” Harris laughed, “and if somebody threw down a dunk, he might try to join them.”

For Mekhi-Bennings, the healing is only beginning. The stories Moten told—of checking Michael Jordan, of outscoring entire teams—used to fill car rides along D.C.’s Anacostia Freeway. Now they echo in a quiet gym, preserved in pixels on a scoreboard, and in the resolve of a teenager who discovered it is permissible, even for the tough ones, to cry.