Glow of national championship appears strong as Christ the King star Omar Calhoun gives verbal commitment to Huskies.
New York City's top guard in the Class of 2012 came off the board Friday as
Omar Calhoun of
Christ the King (Middle Village) made a verbal commitment to Connecticut following a trip to campus.
Omar Calhoun, Christ the King
Photo by Lonnie Webb
The 6-foot-5, 190-pound shooting guard is rated No. 41 in MaxPreps.com's Class of 2012 Top 100. Calhoun – no relation to Huskies head coach Jim Calhoun – was the New York Post's All-City Player of the Year as a junior, averaging 20.1 points per game and leading the Royals to their second-straight Catholic High Schools Athletic Association title.
Calhoun is spending his summer competing in Nike's Elite Youth Basketball League with the storied New York Gauchos. He is the circuit's leading scorer and pumped in 31 points in a recent outing against All-Iowa Attack over Memorial Day weekend.
"Coach Calhoun's record speaks for itself and they have some fabulous assistants. Those are a couple of the things that appealed to Omar," Gauchos coach Billy Singleton said. "Obviously winning the national championship has a certain amount of appeal to any high school player."
Kemba Walker, the star of Connecticut's title run, is also a Gauchos product and played in New York City's CHSAA at
Rice.
"Kemba was raised in this program and I think it is pretty special for Connecticut to come back to a place they have had success in the past to recruit," Singleton said.
Calhoun is Connecticut's first 2012 commitment, but the glow of the Huskies national championship victory over Butler appears to be strong. The Huskies also picked up a pledge from highly-touted 2011 star DeAndre Daniels earlier in the week.
Omar Calhoun with the New York Gauchos
