It was not until Darrell Corbett saw Donte Greene’s younger brother that he realized Donte was back in Baltimore. Corbett, who coached Carmelo Anthony in AAU basketball and now coaches the Anthony-sponsored Team Melo, first met Donte Greene when he was a toddler. Corbett ran a 4-H recreation center with Greene’s mother and kept an eye on the youngster as he sprouted up. But when the Greenes moved to New York a few years later, Corbett lost touch. After Greene’s mother, April, passed away when he was 13, the family moved back to Baltimore, and it was there that Corbett and Greene were united, thanks to Donte’s brother’s striking resemblance to his mother. Immediately, Corbett saw a player with a bright future in Donte Greene. “You could see he had potential,” he said. “He had good size, good skill – he was a good offensive player.” Shortly thereafter, Greene, who attended Towson Catholic High School, began playing for Corbett’s AAU squad. While suiting up for Team Melo, Corbett said, Greene refined his perimeter game and developed his post play, but it was in the intangibles that the lanky forward made the longest strides. “He had to mature a lot,” Corbett said. “You’re going to take a lot of hits and criticism. You’ve got to have thick skin. Everyone wants to test you.” Anthony attended Towson Catholic for his first three years of high school and the two hoops icons got to know each other around Baltimore. In the summer of 2005 as Greene was deciding where to play in college, Anthony sent him text messages encouraging Greene to choose the Orange. “He admired Carmelo,” Corbett said. “Carmelo grew up in this program as well.” After several years with Corbett’s team and four years of outstanding play for Towson Catholic, where in his senior year he averaged 23.3 points and 12 rebounds, Greene followed in Anthony’s footsteps yet again and attended Syracuse. “[Anthony] was a big part of it, being the best player ever to come out of that city,” said Dave Telep, the recruiting director for Scout.com. “When you win a national title [in 2003] and [contend for] national player of the year, you get a lot of street credit.” For his part, Greene has long maintained he is comfortable with the comparisons to Anthony. “It’s such a great thing, such a privilege,” Greene told the Syracuse Daily Orange when asked about being compared to the former ‘Cuse star. “But our games are so different, man. All those fans up there (in Syracuse) have to understand: Carmelo and I are not the same player.” According to Telep, there is a better Baltimore likeness for Greene: former Connecticut star Rudy Gay. Telep said that Gay’s size (6-foot-9) and versatility make him the better comparison. Whereas Greene and Gay are big forwards who can also play outside, Anthony was almost a guard in a forward’s body. Anthony did not just lead Greene to Syracuse. He led recruiters from all over the country to Baltimore and instilled in the kids growing up in rough Baltimore neighborhoods the idea that college was an attainable goal. “He put [the city] on the map,” Corbett said of Anthony. “He gave kids in Baltimore the idea that they can do that too. . He showed they can make it.” Added Telep: “What Carmelo Anthony did for kids from Baltimore – he won. That is something completely different from what a lot of guys had. Chris Paul, his boy in the NBA, didn’t have that. LeBron [James] didn’t have that. . He made it cool to go to school. His affect will still be felt 20-30 years from now.” Other players who have come out of Baltimore since Anthony include Gay, Memphis’ Joey Dorsey, and Georgetown’s DaJuan Summers. “There’s no question that DaJuan is always going to be linked with Carmelo and Rudy and [Greene] because they are all extremely talented forwards who came out of Baltimore almost in consecutive seasons,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III told The Washington Times last month. “Those comparisons are inevitable. But they can also be limiting because those guys are all very different players.” Now, Corbett says, aspiring Baltimore basketball players can look to Greene as well. “Donte is the next guy. Donte is that next guy,” he said. Greene did not take long to make his mark on the Big East. He started his first collegiate game in the team’s first game of the season, tallying 14 points and seven rebounds and playing nearly the whole game (36 minutes). Since, his team has struggled with injuries – talented guard Eric Devendorf injured himself against Eastern Tennessee State on Dec. 15 and will not return this season – and inconsistency, losing both their Big East road games, at Cincinnati and West Virginia. Greene, though, has more than held his own. He has led the team or tied for the team lead in scoring in nine of the team’s 18 games and in rebounding five times. He is the Orange’s leading scorer overall at 18.9 points per game and their second-leading rebounder at 7.9 a contest. He has shot 46 percent from the field, including 39.5 percent from beyond the arc, and nearly 35 minutes a night. Through Wednesday night’s games, Greene was the Big East’s third-leading scorer and 11th best rebounder. “There’s no question that Donte has to be a focal point of our offense and he’s stepped into the role really well,” Syracuse Head Coach Jim Boeheim said on yesterday’s Big East coaches conference call. “He’s been very consistent – he’s been probably our most consistent player all year. He’s been there every night for us. . He has to accept a major, major role for us a freshman.” While Boeheim acknowledged that Greene’s freshman season lends itself to comparisons with Anthony’s, he said that the major difference was that Anthony was playing with a more experienced, more polished supporting cast. “We just had more veteran guys around, so he didn’t really have to do it every night,” Boeheim said. Facing Georgetown on Monday will be the biggest test of Greene’s young career. The No. 5 Hoyas will be only the second ranked team he has faced – and also the second in three days, with the Orange facing Villanova tomorrow. Fittingly, it will likely be Summers that draws the assignment of making Greene’s first homecoming one worth forgetting.