Mentor's Justin Fritts Is Named Mr. Basketball

has had a lot of great basketball players but, of all of them, only Justin Fritts has been named Mr. Basketball.

Senior swingman Fritts concluded a brilliant four years of basketball by being named the best player in the state by the Ohio AP.

He averaged 28.1 points, eight rebounds, 3.7 steals and 2.9 assists per game and was the leader of a Cardinals team that went 22-3 and advanced to the Div. 1 regional tournament.

Fritts maintains an almost 4.0 GPA and was already named the NOC Valley most valuable player, the Northeast Lakes District player of the year and first-team All-Ohio this season, according to The News-Herald.

Fritts is an excellent 2-sport athlete and at Wheeling Jesuit University.

In fact, when The Plain Dealer interviewed Fritts about winning Mr. Basketball, they had to do it between innings at a baseball scrimmage.

"This is truly a great honor," Fritts told the newspaper. "There are some unbelievable names on the list of winners and to have my name included in the same sentence with players like LeBron James is unreal. I am so humbled by this it's almost surreal."

Mentor boys basketball Coach Bob Krizancic told the AP that Fritts would be very difficult to replace.

"In his four-year career, we won 84 games, we went to four regionals and we got to state — we lost to Moeller two years ago," Krizancic said to the AP. "His biggest attribute is he’s able to make the big play. This year the ball was in his hand, win or lose. He wanted the ball, that’s the important thing. He’s going to be extremely hard to replace."

Fritts was selected as Mr. Basketball by a panel of media from across Ohio.

You can read more about Fritts' accompishment from The News-Herald, Plain Dealer and Ohio AP.