 | Pine Crest (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) junior Brandon Knight has steppe out of anonymity's shadow to be a rising star. Ren Dittfield/RISE |
By Lucas O'Neill, Special to SI.com, RISE
Brandon Knight claims he wasn't a very good basketball player when he first started out. He struggled in his local recreation league and was regularly trounced on the hardwood by friends and family members alike.
One day, after a particularly humiliating loss to his cousin, Knight says he welled up with tears. But instead of wallowing in self-pity, Knight channeled his frustration into the sport that would eventually come to define him.
"He'd go in and start playing video games and I'd stay outside shooting, shooting, shooting because I was so mad," says Knight.
It didn't take long for Knight to start beating his cousin -- and just about everyone else who crossed his path. The sophomore standout is now considered one of the nation's top players in the Class of 2010 and has helped turned his Pine Crest (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) team into a state powerhouse in just two years since joining the starting lineup as an eighth-grader.
The 6-foot-3, 170-pound combo guard led the Panthers to district and regional titles last season, earning Class 3A All-State first team honors. He also had Pine Crest on the cusp of a state title before the team lost to P.K. Yonge (Gainesville, Fla.) in the state semifinals.
Knight averaged 25.2 points, 9.4 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 2.0 steals per game -- impressive numbers for anyone but downright sensational for a freshman. He even scored 55 points in a four-overtime loss to the Benjamin School (North Palm Beach, Fla.), a game in which coach David Beckerman says Knight probably should have shot more.
"Very rarely will you ever see Brandon Knight force a situation," Beckerman says. "This kid is an offensive player, but he's much more of a team player. If he sees an open man, he'll hit him."
The unselfishness is part and parcel of Knight's game. While he is an excellent shooter, what separates Knight from the pack is his ability to create scoring opportunities, push the tempo and play the kind of game-changing defense you don't expect from a 15-year-old.
"My dad always says if you score 25 and the person you're guarding scores 25, it's like you did nothing -- you scored zero," says Knight, who consistently takes two or three charges per game. "If you just play offense and let your opponent come down and don't play defense, what's the point of scoring?"
This past spring and summer, Knight was scouted by some of the top college programs in the country and has already received a scholarship offer from Florida. But unlike many top ballers, Knight's admission to a top-flight university isn't contingent on his hoop skills.
He's in the top two percent of his class at a very competitive academic school, and although his 4.0 GPA excuses him from team-mandated study sessions, Knight is there every day.
"Understand that this kid is very rare," says Beckerman. "He is not typical. People look at him and may perceive that he is just like a lot of other kids. He is not like other kids. He is a very, very special student-athlete."
That much is evident from the numbers alone. To complement his 4.0 GPA, Knight has set a slew of school records on the court in just two seasons. He owns Pine Crest records for career assists (320), points in a game (55), points in a season (757), points in a career (1,248) and 3-pointers in a season (59).
More importantly, he's led the Panthers to the district playoffs for the first time since the early 1960s, taking a program that went 12-9 the season before he arrived and helping it post records of 23-3 and 23-7 while qualifying for districts the last two years. And this season could be even better.
Along with Knight and junior point guard Brandon Reese, who set school records for assists in a game (15) and season (223) last year, the Panthers bring back Ed Waite, a talented junior swingman who missed much of last season with an injured knee, and senior Jeff Pelage, who set single-season school records for blocks and rebounds last year.
Despite all the returning talent, however, Pine Crest might not even be the favorite to win its district. American Heritage (Plantation, Fla.), which lost to Pine Crest in last year's district finals, returns senior forward Eloy Vargas and 6-foot-9 junior forward Bak Bak. As if that's not enough firepower, the Patriots add 2006-07 Class 6A Player osf the Year Kenny Boynton Jr. and All-State point guard Ray Taylor, a pair of junior transfers who each led their former schools -- Blanche Ely and Monsignor Pace -- to state titles last season.
"That's only going to push us to work hard," says Knight, who averaged 18.9 points and 9.5 rebounds per game as an eighth-grader. "I think we can win this year. My goal is to win states."
Of course, it all starts with Knight, who was a team leader even as a freshman thanks to his calm, focused demeanor and unparalleled work ethic.
"I think he drives for perfection," says Beckerman. "When practice is over, he wants to stay longer. He drives himself. Part of it is instinctively there, part of it is driven, educated, conditioned.
"He wants to get better," Beckerman adds. "Equally importantly, he understands how to get better. Those players that want to get better begin to emulate him."
More than anything, Knight practices ball-handling daily. "You want to make the ball an extension of your hand and be able to do whatever you want with it," says Knight, who projects as a point guard even though he's a combo guard for the Panthers.
And Knight no longer needs to get mad to keep shooting, shooting, shooting. He takes 500 shots per practice, trying to keep his accuracy above 65 percent. All that work has made Knight one of the nation's top players and Pine Crest a frequent destination for powerhouse college coaches. The precocious sophomore intends to keep it that way.
"Most kids, they'll stop working once they see that," Knight says. "I enjoy it, but that also keeps pushing me. I want every school in the country to say, 'I want that kid on my team.' I still push myself just to keep getting better."
Some things never change.
