The Oakland County prep basketball scene has its own Jeremy Lin-type story in Troy senior guard Larry Sylvester.

Back on Friday night, Sylvester found the zone in a huge way, dropping a career-high 20 points by hitting a sizzling 6 of 6 from 3-point distance, in the Colts 91-53 thrashing of Berkley.

The amazing part of this story is that Sylvester was literally pulled off the scrapheap a few weeks ago and added to the roster for needed depth in the wake of the departure of a pair of Colts starters.

He played JV last year as a junior and failed to make the final cut for varsity this year during tryouts in November. Despite his cutting, Troy head coach Gary Fralick liked Sylvester's dogged determination. When he asked the Colts' longtime sideline general if he could just practice with the team, take stats during games and not dress, Fralick welcomed him into fold with open arms.

Sylvester played so well in practice that when senior point guard Evan Mahone left the team for personal reasons in late January, Fralick didn't hesitate to call him up to duty on the varsity squad, issuing him a uniform and assigning him back-up responsibilities in Troy's backcourt for the Colts' stretch run. The transfer of the team's second leading scorer, Maceo Baston, Jr., to Birmingham Detroit Country Day, last week, opened up even more playing time for the hot-shooting Sylvester.

"Larry is just the definition of hard work, persistence and resilience," Fralick said. "He's earned everything he's got these past few weeks and that's a tribute to his attitude, his loyalty to this program and the timely play he's exhibited whenever we've called his number."

The Colts are 11-4 and have won eight of its last nine games.