‘Princess Lacey’ and the basketball star

“Princess Lacey,” Lacey Holsworth, suffered from neuroblastoma, a fetal-nerve cell cancer. She wore a blond wig because chemotherapy took her hair.

Adreian Payne, a basketball player at Michigan State, met her during a players visit to the cancer ward at a hospital. Those visits are usually brief and then everyone moves along. Payne did not.

Lacey, 8, died late yesterday.