Tremont Waters chose LSU over UConn, Georgetown.

With the (not unexpected) news that New Haven's own Tremont Waters is heading off to LSU, it would appear yet another indignity in UConn's recruiting season of discontent.

It started back in January, when Hamidou Diallo chose Kentucky over the Huskies. It continued on as one UConn target after another opted for different programs, most notably Sidney Wilson picking St. John's a couple of weeks ago.

Add it all to Makai Ashton-Langford backing out of his commitment, three players (Steve Enoch, Vance Jackson and Juwan Durham) bolting the program and ... well, the optics aren't good.

So I called around to some New England-based prep and AAU coaches to see what the perception of UConn is these days. Here's some of what they had to say.

JASON SMITH, Brewster Academy head coach:

"It's still definitely one of the premier programs in the country. Coach Ollie is tremendous, and I think they made a fantastic hire. Coach (Raphael) Chillious is one of my closest friends in the business, one of the coaches I communicate with most frequently."

"I know they've had some hiccups the last month or two, but that's part of how recruiting goes in cycles."

The 'Top Five' is now down to 'Top Three'

"They're gonna be more than fine. Coach Chillious, Dwayne Killings are two of the most respected assistant coaches in the business. Coach Ollie's proven to be a championship-caliber coach himself. I think UConn is one of the premier programs in the country. Everything goes in cycles. You'll see them bounce back, have a great year, then continue to recruit great guys."

JERE QUINN, St. Thomas More head coach:

"I think it's taken a hit. Unfortunately, the conference lacks the luster with a lot of these kids. They're in with the top players with every other major program. But the league doesn't bring a lot of national prominence. The rivalries are new; it's a new league trying to find itself. Connecticut is still going after the top-echelon kids in the U.S., and they've got some pretty good players, too."

"It's very difficult for those guys to compete against the Big 10, the Big East, the ACC. If you ask the same question to the people at East Carolina or Tulane - nothing against them, but they're not going after the same kids UConn is going after."

We'll have much more in Wednesday's Register, including Smith's views on why Ashton-Langford de-committed from UConn and went to Providence, and why Wilson picked St. John's. Smith coached both players at Brewster.

Also a bit more on Smith's relationship with Chillious, and Quinn's take on why Christian Vital elected to remain at UConn.

*** Meanwhile, UConn is still heavily interested in Class of 2018 point guard Luguentz Dort from Canada. Chillious saw him drop 36 points against 22 Feet Academy (S.C.) while still at Washington to see Mamadou Diarra (not the UConn kid, the kid that recently committed to Cincinnati). The Huskies are still inquiring about the score-first point guard, but Louisville likes him a lot, too, as does Florida and old friend Andre LaFleur at UNLV, among others.

*** And add this name to UConn's recruiting interests: Brycen Goodine, a 6-foot-4, Class of 2019 combo guard from New Bedford, Massachusetts. He preps at St. Andrew's, and comes from good stock: his mom played at Providence, and his dad, Jonathan DePina, was a guard at UMass.

DePina also was a mentor to a young kid from Roxbury by the name of Shabazz Napier.

UConn has received a national letter-of-intent from Christian Vital. Here's the press release the school sent out this afternoon:

The UConn men's basketball program has received a signed Letter of Intent from Christian Vital, a combination guard from Queens Village, N.Y., who will join the freshman class of 2016-17.

Vital, 6-2 and 170 pounds, averaged 16.2 points per game last season at St. Thomas More (Oakdale, Conn.), helping the Chancellors to a 31-7 record and the National Prep Championship finals.
Vital is known as a high-energy athlete, who can play either guard position, with an outstanding long range jumper, and is a solid defender. But UConn coach Kevin Ollie feels that he brings to the program much more than his basketball skills.

"Besides being a great basketball player with a great basketball mind, Christian is just an outstanding leader," Ollie said. "He has won wherever he's been. He's a great person who lifts your spirit when you're around him.

"Christian's ability to play both guard positions and his leadership qualities are what intrigued us. His combination of talent and character are what we're looking for in our student-athletes. We think he'll be a wonderful addition to the program."

Vital was a New England Prep School Athletic Conference Class AAA All-New England First-Team selection. He scored 13 points, including three three-pointers, and handed out seven assists in the Jordan Brand Classic Regional Game, in which he played with fellow UConn incoming recruit Mamadou Diarra.

"He may have improved more than any kid I've ever had here for two years," St.Thomas More coach Jere Quinn told the Norwich Bulletin. "He's such a hard worker. First to show up in the gym, last to leave --- that kind of kid."

Vital is also well-acquainted with more of his future UConn teammates. In 2014-15 at St. Thomas More, he was a teammate of UConn rising sophomore forward Steve Enoch, he played he played AAU ball with current UConn redshirt sophomore Terry Larrier, and knows UConn rising sophomore Jalen Adams from the AAU and NEPSAC circuits
.
Vital joins UConn's highly-touted recruiting class which has been consistently rated among the top 10 in the country, including forward Diarra (Queens, N.Y.), guard Alterique Gilbert (Lithonia, Ga.), and forwards Vance Jackson (Altedena, Calif.), and Juwan Durham (Tampa, Fla.).

A couple of things today:

*** UConn commit Steve Enoch was named the 2014-15 Gatorade Connecticut Boys Basketball Player of the Year. Enoch, from Norwalk, played this past season at St. Thomas More School.

The 6-foot-10, 235-pound senior forward averaged 15 points and 11 rebounds per game this past season, leading the Chancellors (29-9) to the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council Class AAA semifinals. The state’s No.1 recruit in the Class of 2015 as rated by the New England Recruiting Report, Enoch scored 18 points with seven rebounds in an 83-76, come-from-behind victory over Vermont Academy at the Spaulding Hoophall Classic in January.

Enoch has maintained a 3.27 GPA in the classroom. He has donated his time delivering meals and clothing to families in need and has volunteered as a tour guide for prospective students at his school.

“Steven Enoch possesses tremendous integrity and initiative,” said St. Thomas More head coach Jere Quinn. “He has had a wonderful season while playing in the strongest conference in the country. He will have a very successful career at UConn as a student and as an athlete.”

*** There apparently has been some scuttlebutt about potential UConn transfers, seemingly based on Kevin Ollie's postgame quotes on Wednesday night. While the quotes did raise a few eyebrows, especially since they started off unsolicited, I don't think there's a whole lot to them. For the most part, the "exit interviews" next week are standard operating procedure.

I spoke with Amida Brimah's legal guardian, Nana Baafi, on Friday, and he scoffed at the idea that Brimah might want to transfer.

"Nobody’s thought about anything like that at all. That stuff is not … I don’t know how that stuff got out there," he said.

What about the NBA? A veteran Eastern Conference scout told me the other day that both Brimah and Daniel Hamilton would "both, for sure, be drafted -- maybe high second-round picks. To say they're first-round guys? I wouldn't say that right now."

But Baafi doesn't think that will happen, either.

"Shoot, honestly I don’t know. I don’t think so. He just took a couple of days off, we haven't had that discussion at all. It's not on our minds. We're not even close to that at all."

Then, asked about this past season, Baafi said: "Next year will be better, I know that much for sure."

*** Had a chance to chat with Richard Hamilton on Friday. He's currently promoting the new Gillette clear gel product called Undefeated, which promises wetness protection and no odor for up to 48 hours.

"From a guy's perspective, as a dad and an athlete, you need something that's gonna last you 1-2 days," he said. "Especially out in the sun."

Here's  the story I wrote for the Register, in which he talks retirement, his greatest memory as a player, and why UConn is the "best campus in the world," and here are a few leftover quotes:

(on who he likes in the NCAA tournament)

"I think Wisconsin. The only reason why I say that, you have to be lucky to win. You have to have a great team, but also be lucky. (Kentucky is) young. They don’t have guys on the team that have been in college four years, so when there's adversity, how do you handle when stuff ain’t going right for you? Are you gonna go out on your own, or stay in team concept? But also, they've got a great coach in Coach Cal, so ..."

(would he ever get into coaching?)

"You never know. One thing I love is being an analyst, doing work with NBATV, ESPN. I'm excited about doing that.

If it seems as if I've written this story before, it's because I have ... sorta.

Whether it's been Jim Calhoun's health and/or age, the possible negative ramifications from Nate Miles or APR, or Kevin Ollie working on what amounted to a seven-month contract, there has been plenty of fodder in recent years for opposing coaches to recruit negatively against UConn. And, make no mistake, they have.

Now it's conference realignment and UConn's status in no-man's land, with no Big East brand name or conference tourney at Madison Square Garden to fall back on, as early as next season.

It's always interesting to hear what prep and AAU coaches (not to mention recruits) have to say about possible recruiting impact, and that's what we get in today's story from Jere Quinn (head coach at St. Thomas More, where Andre Drummond went for two years) and Kareem Memminger (coach of the highly-touted AAU program New York Rens, who featured current UConn commits Kentan Facey and Terrence Samuel). We also get Samuel's opinion on the matter.

While the opinions were varied (and both Samuel and Facey are still signed, sealed and delivered and optimistic about UConn), Memminger's opinion was particularly interesting, as he hails from New York, where UConn has mined some of its greatest players in recent years.

Said Memminger: “The 2014, 2015 guys, those are the guys it’s going to affect. I talked to one recruit — I don’t want to mention his name — that UConn has recruited. Basically, his camp told me he likes (UConn) a lot, but they don’t know what conference they’re going to be in.”


Memminger added: "Let's face it, man. It's Conference USA."

Believe it or not, there was a time – not too long ago – when Andre Drummond didn’t particularly like to dunk.

As a 6-foot-7, somewhat uncoordinated freshman at Capital Prep in Hartford, Drummond preferred gliding in for a layup than slamming the ball through the hoop. “Big Finesse,” his coaches used to call him.

“Me and a couple of coaches would tell him, ‘Dunk the ball!’” Capital Prep coach Levy Gillespie recalled. “He’d jump in the air and want to make an up-and-under layup around a guy who’s, like, 6-4. We’d be like, ‘Andre, what are you doing?’”

Drummond eventually got the message.

“By the end of his sophomore year,” Gillespie said, “he had pretty much perfected that windmill that he loves, and the between-the-legs dunk.”

Ah yes, the windmill and the between-the-legs dunk, both of which he showcased in a dunk contest at UConn’s First Night festivities a few weeks ago. They weren’t enough to win the contest – fellow freshman Ryan Boatright, the underdog at 5-10, won the hearts of the judges – but they sure were an emphatic “Hello, how do ya do?” to the 10,000 fans who jammed Gampel Pavilion that night.

Suffice to say, Andre Drummond now likes to dunk. His first basket in a Husky uniform came on a vicious, two-handed putback slam of a Jeremy Lamb floater in UConn’s exhibition opener on Nov. 2. He brought the house down three days later at the XL Center by slamming home an alley-oop pass off the glass from Shabazz Napier in the Huskies’ exhibition finale.

“I was actually planning on putting it between my legs,” Drummond confessed, “but Shabazz was like, ‘Let me get the assist.’”

Of his 13 field goals in UConn’s two exhibition contests, about 10 of them have been dunks. And there figure to be plenty more throughout the winter – beginning tonight at Gampel in UConn’s season-opener against Columbia all the way to, quite possibly, the New Orleans Superdome in early April.

But Andre Drummond, the Middletown resident who also happens to be the most heralded recruit ever to don a UConn uniform, is about much more than just dunking. He’s everything you could expect from a prodigious talent – and a lot of things you might not expect, as well.

He’s 6-foot-11, 277 pounds yet “quick as a cat,” according to coach Jim Calhoun. “He might be as good a runner as we have on our team.”

Despite his penchant for slamming the ball through the hoop with savage force, he’d rather hit a teammate with a nifty interior pass.

“I get more excited seeing my teammates scoring the ball and watching their reaction than me scoring the ball myself,” Drummond said.

Though famously close-guarded through a recruiting process that left nearly everybody – including the UConn coaching staff – surprised when he declared his commitment to the school via Twitter on Aug. 26, he’s a disarmingly friendly young man, as comfortable chatting with a media throng as he is clowning around with teammates in his dorm.

“He’s a wonderful kid, well-adjusted,” said Jere Quinn, who coached Drummond at St. Thomas More Prep the past two years. “He’s happy, and he likes to make other people happy.”

And despite being the No. 1-rated recruit in all the land by many scouting services and quite possibly the top pick in the 2012 NBA draft, Drummond is as eager to get better as a walk-on trying to earn a scholarship.

“I’m not the type of guy who’s going to read about myself or talk about myself or brag that I’m the best player in the world, when I’m really not,” he said. “Yeah, I think I do some good things, but there’s always room to do better things, to get yourself better prepared to play at the next level.”

Added UConn junior forward Alex Oriakhi: “The thing about him is, with all the hype around him, you’d think he’d be arrogant. But he’s not. He listens. I try to coach him out there and tell him what he’s doing wrong, and he just takes it in like sponge. That’s the greatest part about him. When you have a kid with that much talent and is willing to listen and get better … the sky’s the limit.”

Long, Strange Trip to Storrs

Andre Drummond’s journey from Middletown to Storrs encompassed only 40 miles, but it took four years and seemingly countless twists, turns and rumors before he finally became a Husky.

Drummond is originally from Mount Vernon, N.Y., and figured he’d eventually play at Mount Vernon High, alma mater of ex-UConn great Ben Gordon.

“Everybody keeps asking me, ‘How did you get out of there?’” Drummond says. “Usually, when you’re in Mount Vernon, (you) don’t leave.”

But when Drummond was about 8, several of his aunts and uncles started leaving town and moving up to Middletown. Eventually, his mother, Christine, moved him and his sister, Ariana, as well.

“They liked the environment,” Drummond explained. “It’s a nice place to grow up for the kids and things like that.”

He went to middle school in Middletown, then two years at Capital Prep before enrolling at St. Thomas More in Oakdale, where he “transformed into a totally different person, basketball-wise,” according to Gillespie.

Indeed, Drummond emerged as a dominant force in prep school. He won 55 games in his two years there, including the 2011 national prep school championship, for which he was named MVP. He was heavily courted by virtually every major program in the country.

But he wasn’t above criticism. Perhaps the most prevalent was that Drummond took plays off, didn’t always play hard. While there was a smidgeon of truth to this knock, it was largely a misconception.

“I think sometimes, kids play to the level of their competition,” said Quinn. “His focus was as good as a typical high school player. Did he take some plays off? Yeah, when we were up 15 (points). Did he ever go and hide in a big game? No. Every coach in the country is trying to find a magic potion to make kids play 100-percent.”

Calhoun concurred.

“I would hate to think of him in a high school game right now. He could do anything he wants without working – just run up the floor and dunk on people. He’s not lazy in any sense of the imagination … He’s just a really nice person. We need to get him to learn, culturally, what we try to do: play hard every single possession.”

Indeed, the proper rub on Drummond may be that he’s too nice – particularly on the basketball court.

“When I’m out there, I’m always smiling,” he said. “That’s just the way I play. Some people think it’s because I don’t take the game seriously. That’s not the case at all. I enjoy playing the game and I’m always smiling, there’s no need for me to be angry at all.”

‘Do I Hear, ‘Repeat’?

Despite Drummond’s naturally sunny disposition, he was legitimately conflicted and sometimes pained during his recruitment process, particularly over the past year. He kept his decision-making process so private that, well into this past summer, Quinn had no idea whether Drummond would return to St. Thomas More or pursue other plans.

UConn thought Drummond was going to commit in June, but that was called off. So the Huskies gave their 10th and final available scholarship to 6-8 forward DeAndre Daniels, a national top-10 recruit.

In mid-August, Drummond finally announced that he’d be transferring to Wilbraham & Monson Academy, where he’d play with good friend Kris Dunn of New London, for another year of prep school. A couple of weeks later, Dunn changed his mind and said he’d play his senior year at New London High.

A few days after that, on a rainy Friday night, came Drummond’s Tweet Heard ‘Round the Nutmeg State: “It’s official: I’m heading to the University of Connecticut to be a Husky this year. Do I hear, ‘Repeat’?”

One problem: UConn had no scholarships to offer Drummond. That was solved when Michael Bradley, who had sat out the previous season as a red-shirt and who had spent much of his youth in a children’s home, gave up his to Drummond.

“I’m thankful for everything that he did," said Drummond. "Me and Mike have had a great relationship, I’ve known him since I was a sophomore, so, I’m really thankful for what he did.”

No doubt, UConn fans feel the exact same way.

“Now,” said Jim Calhoun, “the thing is to take this athletic, wonderful kid who listens all the time, and turn him into a terrific basketball player. He’s not that yet, he really isn’t. But he’s got some things you just can’t teach.”

Andre Drummond says he will announce a decision on his future on Wednesday. What this means is open to plenty of speculation over the next couple of days, but one person who will be as surprised as everybody else about Drummond's decision will be Jere Quinn, his coach at St. Thomas More the past two seasons.

"I haven't talked with them in a month," Quinn said of Drummond and his family. "We've had two good years of Andre and we'd love to have him back for a third, but I have no idea ... If I had more information, I'd tell you."

It's silly to engage in a guessing game right now, though Drummond basically has three options: return to St. Thomas More (which would seem unlikely, given his lack of contact with Quinn), transfer to another prep school, play overseas or enroll in college. He will be eligible for the 2012 NBA draft.

Only thing I know is that UConn's scholarship allotment is full at 10, and Jim Calhoun told me a short while ago that he doesn't envision any roster changes moving forward.

Stay tuned ...