Dave Beckerman tried.

Not in a pushy way -- he knows Brandon Knight already has dozens of hangers-on pushing and pulling him one way or another, so he'd never impose anything on him. But Beckerman, the New Haven native and longtime UConn fan who coached Knight at Pine Crest School in Boca Raton, Fla., tried in his own way to persuade Knight to choose Jim Calhoun and UConn over John Calipari and Kentucky.

Didn't work. Knight, was we all know, opted for Lexington last April in a press conference at Pine Crest School that I attended (I was on vacation in Florida at the time).

Why did Knight go Blue? Beckerman thinks there were various reasons.

"The (Jasper) Howard issue, the issue of health with Jim Calhoun, his contract, the (NCAA) investigation. A lot of things added up, and at the end of the day may have even been used against UConn, which I’m not sure of.”

He also noted that Knight had relatives who lived in the Lexington area.

On Thursday, Knight talked about his decision to choose UK over UConn. "It was a tough decision, but Kentucky was my final choice. I liked UConn, but I just felt better off going to Kentucky," adding that Beckerman informed him about UConn, but "really just wanted the best for me.”

He also noted that Calipari's success with one-and-done point guards like Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans and John Wall also played a role.

“It definitely weighed in my decision, just knowing that a lot of other guards that were pretty good in high school trusted Coach Cal to get them to the next level, and to help them get better individually. Also the fact that other players around those people got a lot better.”

Knight’s decision was crushing to UConn fans at the time. Around the same time, the program was being shunned by other top recruits (Josh Shelby, Corey Joseph and Doron Lamb, who’s also now a freshman guard at UK), and Knight’s nix seemed to hint that Calhoun was slipping on the recruiting trail.

Rather, it may have been a blessing in disguise. Had Knight committed to UConn, Shabazz Napier almost certainly wouldn’t have come to Storrs (at least for this season; Napier said he may have opted for another year at prep school had Knight become a Husky).



And though Jeremy Lamb had already committed to the Huskies, it’s doubtful he would have emerged as the dynamic, versatile scorer he’s become over the past couple of months.

It’s also hard to envision how Walker and Knight would have shared the same backcourt, even if both have proven quite adept at playing off the ball.

Still, Beckerman, who founded the former New Haven-based Starter sports apparel line and was the head coach at Hamden Hall for a few years, can’t help thinking of how life would have been different for Knight in Storrs.

“I think he clearly would have been a much more offensive threat,” Beckerman said. “I don’t know if that would have taken away from Kemba in terms of offense, and I don’t know if Kemba cares about that. Calipari is trying to mold him into a pass-first,shoot-second point guard. Jim Calhoun lets the natural instincts come out in a player. That’s his formula for success.”

Knight averaged 17.3 points and 4.2 assists per game as a Wildcat freshman. He’s reached double figures in all but three of UK’s 37 games, but has really risen to prominence in the NCAA tournament. Knight’s bank shot with two seconds left against Princeton (his only two points of the game) kept the Wildcats from an embarrassing first-round loss. And his jumper with 5.4 seconds left against Ohio State moved the Wildcats into the Elite Eight, where they beat North Carolina behind Knight’s game-high 22 points.

Knight’s Kemba-like ability in the clutch is nothing new to Beckerman, who recalled a regional championship game in Knight’s junior season. Pine Crest was losing, one of its best players had just fouled out and everyone on the bench – including Beckerman – had their heads down.

During a timeout, Knight turned to Beckerman and asked, “Coach, what time is practice tomorrow?” He then proceeded to go out and hit three 3-pointers and six straight free throws over the next three minutes, propelling Pine Crest into the state finals with a 52-point effort.

Now Beckerman, who winters in Boca Raton while coaching Pine Crest but spends his summers in Guilford, will be torn while watching the Final Four. He’ll root for Knight to have a good game, but root for UConn to win.

And deep down, he’ll still wonder what it would have been like had Brandon Knight become a Husky.

“It would have been great for UConn,” Beckerman said, “and, candidly, I think it would have been great for Brandon.”

Not surprisingly, UConn's commits and recruiting targets want to know what's going on with Jim Calhoun. What they're hearing from the Huskies' coaching staff is that the coach is fine, will be back this season and will certainly be back on the sidelines next year.

It doesn’t appear the staff has told the recruits what Calhoun’s ailment is (though “high blood pressure” apparently was the message relayed to at least one recruit) or how long he’ll be out.

“Coach (Patrick) Sellers said he was going to be OK,” Michael Bradley said. “He said they’ve got Coach (George) Blaney right now, it’s like (not) skipping a beat.”

Of course, if for whatever reason Calhoun is unable to coach UConn next year, Bradley, Roscoe Smith and others would consider going elsewhere. But they don't seem at all concerned that will be the case.

Brandon Knight? Yup, he's been asking, too.

“His family did ask me about Coach Calhoun,” said Dave Beckerman, the New Haven native who coaches Knight, a senior, down at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “With (Calhoun’s) latest announcement, they want to know what’s going on. I told them, ‘I don’t know, but from my knowledge, Coach Calhoun is a very intense, discipline coach. It looks like it’s not a physical problem, he just needed some rest and some time off.’”

Knight, a 6-3 point guard who is averaging 31 points, eight rebounds, 4.5 assists and three steals per game this season, has narrowed his list of schools down to UConn, Kentucky, Kansas, Florida and Miami, in no particular order. He was slated to make his final official visit to Miami this past weekend, according to Beckerman.

It appears Knight won’t make a commitment until after his high school season is over in March. That will give Knight, a potential one-and-done college player, the chance to gauge what kind of talent teams have coming back for a potential run to a national championship next season.

Of course, the other inherent problem with Calhoun’s health issues is the potential for negative recruiting. You can almost hear an assistant, even a head coach from another program whispering to a recruit, “Hey, you can go to UConn, but can you be assured Jim Calhoun will be there for the next few years? Or even next year?”

Hurd, however, doesn’t believe that will be a big problem for Calhoun.

“There are a few guys you don’t mess with," said Hurd, "and he’s one of them.”

Read more about this in tomorrow's Register.

Here's a piece from today's Register on New Haven's own Dave Beckerman, who coaches the reigning Gatorade National Player of the Year, Brandon Knight, down at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale.

UConn will have an in-home visit with Knight tomorrow, prior to an open gym workout at Pine Crest, where the biggest names in college basketball coaching (Jim Calhoun, John Calipari, Billy Donovan, Bill Self, etc.) are expected to attend. Only problem is, turns out Knight may not be able to showcase all his talents. Knight had suffered a stress fracture in his foot a short while ago, and while he just got out of a cast, he's not quite ready to go at full-throttle yet. Rather than play, he'll likely run a few drills and also (as team captain) instruct his teammates during the open gym. The coaches are still likely to be there.

It also means that Knight isn't likely to play much (if at all) with current UConn players during his official visit to Storrs this upcoming weekend. Recruits usually try to get some run in with their potential future teammates during such visits, but Knight probably won't.


Knight won't be alone at this weekend's visit, either. Michael Bradley, a 6-10 senior center at Tyner High in Chattanooga, TN, will be on an official visit, as well. Bradley is the 15th-ranked center in the Class of 2010, according to scout.com.

Next Wednesday, Sept. 23, at the Pine Crest School's gymnasium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a veritable who's who of college basketball coaches will gather to watch Brandon Knight, the nation's top recruit in the Class of 2010, play in an open gym format.

Jim Calhoun will be there. So will John Calipari, Coach K, Jim Boeheim, Bill Self, Rick Barnes, Billy Donovan, Stan Heath and many others -- including, most likely, coaches from Yale and Harvard (Knight, after all, boasts a 4.2 grade-point average).

Pine Crest coach Dave Beckerman, a Guilford resident and former Hamden Hall coach, held a similar open gym last year. Calhoun, Boeheim, Bobby Gonzalez and others were in attendance. But this year's roster is even more impressive.

Knight will make an official visit to Kentucky this weekend, and after next week's open gym, he'll travel to Connecticut, stay at Beckerman's house for a night or two, then make an official visit to UConn. He's already made two unofficials to the school.

Knight has already made an official to Florida, and his others will be Kentucky, UConn, Kansas and Duke. Beckerman doesn't believe that Knight, a 6-3 point guard who averaged 31.8 points per game last season for Pine Crest, will make a commitment this fall. He's likely to wait until the spring.

"There are a lot of variables," Beckerman noted. "He wants to look at who else commits to the schools, how the team does, what's coming back. He wants to see where he fits in."

Suffice to say, Knight should fit in quite well, wherever he chooses. In fact, academically, according to Beckerman, if he went to UConn he'd have 18 credits right off the bat, thanks to all of the AP courses he's taken at Pine Crest (one of the top academic schools in Florida).

Incidentally, Knight will be ESPN on Feb. 15, when Pine Crest takes on Winter Park (which features Doc Rivers' son, another top recruit).