"Not sure why," he said. "It's just something that has always interested me. I wouldn't want to be a doctor. Too much stuff you have to know. But dentist? More [specific]. And I've always had a fascination with mouths."
Luckily for coach Matthew "Moo" Johnson, Keene did not open his trap and complain when told he'd have to serve the height-challenged Knights as a center. And Tuesday, like often this season, he showed height and weight are not always required if heart and savvy are present.
Keene shot 7-for-13 and 3-for-6 for 17 points, snatched eight rebounds and contributed two apiece of assists/steals/blocks as visiting Mansion edged Delaware Valley Charter, 63-58, in a Public B game at Simon Recreation Center, in West Oak Lane.
Keene jammed eight of those points into a 28-20 fourth quarter.
Like three teammates, he wasn't exactly golden at the foul line. And The Future Dentist knows the drill.
"We're going to be shooting a lot of free throws at practice [today]," he said, laughing. "Probably for an hour, at least."
Keene insisted that no tall guys are roaming the halls at Mansion.
"We have the 6-6 guy, Samir [Miller], but he's already on the team [as a deep sub]," Keene said. "I kept hoping all fall that maybe someone big would transfer in. That didn't happen.
"You could go around our whole school. There's nobody. It's kind of strange because Mansion had some 6-8, 6-10 guys right in the era before I got here. But if you work hard and box out and use your smarts, you can still do all right.
"I know I'm going to be a guard at the next level. So I keep working on those skills whenever I get the chance."
Though Mansion entered the fourth quarter facing a 38-35 deficit and the first two points went to D-V, anyone with a Keene eye knew what was coming next: a minicollapse.
All game, it seemed as if the Warriors were allergic to leads. Five points here, seven points there. They just kept going poof!
