Lawrence Moten, a basketball star at Syracuse in the early 1990s who still holds the program scoring record, has died. He was 53.

An athletic department spokesperson said Tuesday that multiple staff members learned of Moten’s death from various contacts and that Moten was at home in Washington, D.C., when he died. A cause of death was not immediately clear.

A 6-foot-5 guard known as “Poetry in Moten,” he scored 2,334 points over four seasons with the Orange, from 1991 to 1995. His 1,405 points in Big East play was a conference record that stood until 2020.

Hall of Famer Jim Boeheim, who recruited and coached Moten, called it a tragic day for the Syracuse basketball family.

“Lawrence’s passing is such a sudden thing; it’s very hard to take,” Boeheim said. “He was one of the most underrated college basketball players of all time. I believe some people took his ability for granted because he made it look so easy. Lawrence was one of our greatest players and one of the best in the history of the Big East Conference.”

Syracuse qualified for the NCAA tournament three times with Moten, who had his No. 21 jersey retired in a pregame ceremony March 3, 2018, at the Carrier Dome.

“I can’t think of anybody that was more positive or who loved Syracuse more than he did,” said Adrian Autry, who was a teammate with Moten for three seasons at Syracuse and succeeded Boeheim as coach in 2023. “He was one of the greatest to put on the uniform. It’s a big loss. I was able to play alongside him for three years and watch him do some amazing things. I was fortunate to spend time with him on and off the court.”

Orange athletic director John Wildhack called Moten a Syracuse icon.

“His accolades as Syracuse’s all-time leading scorer and holding the Big East scoring record for 25 years speak for themselves, but his style of play is what energized the Dome,” Wildhack said. “He was a fixture around the program long after his playing career, always with a smile on his face.”

Moten was a second-round pick of the Vancouver Grizzlies in the 1995 NBA draft. He played two seasons with them and an additional eight games with the Washington Wizards in 1998.

There were lofty expectations attached to the New York Mets entering this season. But a 5-5 record over the final 10 games of the regular season, coupled with a less-than-stellar September as a whole, ended with the Mets falling short of the playoffs.

Amid the Mets’ misfortunes, Michael Kay, a radio host and play-by-play announcer for the New York Yankees, decided to weigh in.

Kay used the opportunity to point the finger at the way some fans behaved during different periods of the offseason and into the regular season.

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“Again, every Met fan out there, I feel for you. I do. And I don’t rejoice in your pain at all, but it’s that vicious, angry subset of Mets fans that weren’t hugged by their parents, who didn’t have any love in their family and they love to pass along hate; derisive, nasty, those I don’t feel sorry for,” the broadcaster said on “The Michael Kay Show.”

“Let me tell you a little secret: I feel glee about your pain today because you deserve it. The way you tried to make my life a living hell by all those Juan Soto tweets, when you know that I never even said the stuff you’re accusing of me saying, but you needed something to hang on the rim about and said, ‘Let’s pick the guy who announces Yankees games and is also accessible on the radio show, let’s do it to him.’

“But now, I’m the one who’s laughing at you because you couldn’t beat out the Cincinnati Reds with a $110 million payroll. You added the great Juan Soto to a team that went to Game 6 of the NLCS and you didn’t make the playoffs the next year. How do you wrap your mind around that?”

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Kay later clarified that the entire Mets fan base was not the target of his ire. Instead, he highlighted fans who took aim at the Yankees after the Pinstripes failed to retain Juan Soto.

The New York Mets’ Juan Soto (22) walks in the dugout after the Mets lost to the Miami Marlins Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025, in Miami, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

During one of the Yankees-Mets famed “Subway Series,” Kay reported — citing sources within both the Yankees and Mets — that Soto was “very, very glum around the clubhouse.” Kay said he received backlash following his report.

“I got a lot of Mets friends. They’re devastated today. How could you not be?” Kay said. “This team systematically rips your heart out. And those are the people I genuinely for. I really feel for them. The people that I don’t feel for, the people that made me think that it might be fun today to come on today at 1 o’clock and just giggle for two hours. You know who you are. You’re the creeps that couldn’t let good enough be. You’re the ones, ‘We’re big brother now.’ You’re the ones who kept sending those tweets out to me, ‘Juan Soto looks happy now.’ How dumb do you feel? How chagrined are you? Are you embarrassed?

New York Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay during Joe Torre’s number retirement ceremony before a game against the Chicago White Sox at Yankee Stadium Aug. 8, 2014. (Porter Binks /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

“Because this was going to be a dawning of a new era. The Yankees were going away. When they went 20-31 over those 51 games, you were rejoicing. ‘I don’t think the Yankees can make the playoffs. See, they couldn’t do it with their Plan B.’ Plan B worked. Your Plan A didn’t. You signed the best free agent available in a long time. One of the best players ever to become a free agent, just a smidge behind Alex (Rodriguez) … that’s how valuable Juan Soto is, and you still felt flat on your face.”

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Soto finished his first season in Queens with 43 home runs, 105 RBIs and 38 stolen bases.

While the Mets front office begins to strategize on how to improve in 2026, the Yankees open a wild-card playoff series with the Boston Red Sox Tuesday evening.

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