Wouldn't it be nice?
So I'm watching Sportscenter on Saturday when the highlights started rolling for the Oklahoma State-Gonzaga game ...
... and they showed a guard for OK State named Jamaal Brown sinking a 3-pointer.
Wait a sec? Is that the same Jamaal Brown?
Why yes, yes it was. The very same Jamaal Brown who signed a letter of intent with UNCG in the fall of 2001.
I was covering the Spartans at the time and I remember watching with growing interest as Brown had a dynamite senior season, leading Westinghouse High School to the Illinois state title and then winning the MVP award in the Chicago-New York all-star game. And I remember talking to then UNCG coach Fran McCaffery as he waited (and waited) for Brown to get a qualifying SAT score.
Never happened. Brown never qualified, was denied admission and wound up at Utah Valley State. Here's the rest of his bio from the Oklahoma State site.
Pretty impressive huh? Makes you sort of wonder what might have been, doesn't it? Brown would have been coming in right on the heels of Courtney Eldridge, perhaps providing the next star point guard for the Spartans. Instead, UNCG spent the next few years relying on Ronnie Taylor, who never seemed comfortable in the point guard role, and Ray Bristow, who showed flashes but never truly grasped how to run McCaffery's offense.
Why didn't Brown qualify? Maybe he just never could get that necessary score. But he took so long to take the test that suspicions arose that perhaps Brown had been instructed not to qualify. Doing so would have gotten him out of his LOI to UNCG and allow him to sign with a power conference team after spending a year or two at a prep school or a juco. That sort of thing does happen - i.e. player signs with mid-major, blows up his senior season, suddenly can't seem to fit the SAT into his schedule, doesn't qualify, winds up at a prep school then ends up at a power conference the next year. App State fans will swear up and down that's what happened with former West Rowan star Donte Minter, who orginally signed with the Mountaineers but ended up at Fork Union and then eventualy signed with UVA.
Whether that was the plan with Brown (or with Minter) we'll never know. But Brown did end up at OK State, where he's now the starting point guard. I gotta think he would have made quite an impact in the SoCon.
Comments (3)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
The version of the story that I got from the Chicago papers was that he dropped 30 in the Windy City/Big Apple Classic against a couple of Big East guards.
After that, the Chicago Tribune ran a story saying that he should have waited and signed later.
He never went to take his last SAT attempt and then went out west to JC. After a year in junior college he struck a deal with Oklahoma State to go home and wait a year at another JC before he signed with OSU (to preserve three years of eligibility). Well, OSU went to the final four and raked in a very highly ranked recruiting class, and they forgot about the kid.
So he went back out west after spending a year at an Illinois are JC. This year, after three years of JC, and two of JC ball....brown finally lands in the Big 12.
I think this kid was strongly misguided. He has such a small shot at making in the NBA, that he could have done the same things he's doing now at UNCG (and have been a senior this year).
I think this helped to set the table for the back to back six win seasons, and the eventual arrival of coach Dement.
Sometimes things do work out for the best.
Posted on December 13, 2005 10:06 AM
I'm with Steven on this, though I liked McCaffery and wonder if this vagabond would've produced a few more wins for him. The G seems to be in solid shape under Dement. That was a particularly nice win Sunday over a Gardner-Webb team that had outplayed UNC and beaten Minnesota.
Posted on December 14, 2005 4:59 PM
I played with Jamaal at Utah Valley State and let me tell you he could have been bigger than Oklahoma State if he didn't have an attitude. He was tough, had confidence, and could score at will. He won't do anything at Oklahoma State because he is too small.
Posted on February 4, 2006 10:58 PM