Apr. 3—Jamier Rose's personal basketball future probably would have been enhanced if he had left Noble High for a prep school, like many of Maine's top-rated players have in recent years.
Instead, Rose chose to stay home, to stay with his childhood teammates, and put together a historic two-sport senior season.
Rose led Noble — a decades-long basketball doormat — to its second consecutive Class A South final appearance. He excelled at both ends of the court, scoring and setting up teammates, and creating havoc with his quickness while leading the team in rebounding as a 5-foot-10 point guard.
Rose's overall performance and skill set make him the choice for the 2024-25 Varsity Maine Boys Basketball Player of the Year. Davis Mann, the high-scoring senior from Class A champion Falmouth, was the other top candidate.
It's the latest in a lengthy list of player of the year honors for Rose, who as a quarterback and safety in football earned the 53rd James J. Fitzpatrick Trophy as Maine's top senior football player. About three months later, Rose became the first person to win both the Fitzy and Mr. Maine Basketball since the latter award was created in 1988.
Rose has also won the Varsity Maine Football and the Maine Gatorade Boys Basketball player of the year awards during his senior year at Noble.
"I'm very loyal to my teammates and my team, and I just felt like we didn't finish the job. I didn't want to be the kid that was like, 'Oh, we were so close, then I left,'" Rose said. "My teammates, we're like family. For me, it's like they are my family, and with Coach (John) Morgan, we all came up together and it just didn't feel right leaving and not finishing up with them."
Noble went 16-2 in the regular season to finish first in Class A South. The Knights were 6-1 against Class AA South teams, including a win against AA South champ South Portland and a 20-point win against Thornton Academy, which was first in the regular season.
Rose averaged 19.3 points, 8.9 rebounds, 8.1 assists and an eye-popping 5.1 steals per game.
"He's a plus defender. An elite defender," said Morgan, whose first season at Noble was Rose's freshman year. "He can handle the ball as good as anyone I've seen. He's a fantastic passer. Obviously, he has an array of skill sets in scoring the ball."
Thornton Academy coach Mike Nelson called Rose, "the best all-around player in the state. He makes everyone else on the floor better."
Noble reached the Class A South final for a second-straight season, losing a thriller to Falmouth despite 24 points from Rose. In 2024, Noble lost to eventual state champ Gray-New Gloucester.
Not getting to a state championship game — Noble lost in the Class A South football final to Thornton Academy despite four touchdowns by Rose— was Rose's greatest disappointment, he said.
"If there's any letdown for me and my group, our senior class, that would be the biggest one of all: not making a state final," Rose said. "We were able to change the culture, change the program."
Indeed. Rose and his senior teammates, most notably high scoring guard Bryce Guitard, changed the Noble basketball narrative completely.
With Rose and Guitard starting as freshmen and Morgan a 24-year-old rookie head coach, Noble was 0-18 in Class AA in 2021-22. It was the Knights' sixth zero-win season since 1988, to go with eight one-win seasons. In that time, Noble had one season with a winning record.
The turnaround started the next season with a solid 7-11 record in Class AA. Noble then moved to Class A, a beneficiary of the MPA's now-rescinded rule that allowed teams that had won fewer than 25% of their games to move ...
