In the end, Andrew Bynum opted for the nearby powerhouse.
The 7-foot, 280-pound St. Joseph (N.J.) senior big man, who is the Scout.com No. 13 player in the country and the top-ranked center, committed to UConn on Tuesday night, according to sources close to the situation.
Bynum, who took an official visit to Storrs, Conn. last weekend, also considered Georgia Tech and North Carolina in the end.
He will make it official at a news conference at his school at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
UConn solidified its status, on the heels of a national title a year ago, as one of the elite recruiting schools in the nation. Tom Moore, known as one of the hardest-working assistants in the business, got it done in getting Bynum to follow in the footsteps of Emeka Okafor and Josh Boone as Huskies big men.
Bynum is mammoth and one of the few legitimate centers in the Class of 2005. He's nearly impossible to stop when he gets the ball at the hoop, is a big-time rebounder and will only get better since he turns only 17 this week. He'll still have to work on his conditioning, but he could be the next in the line of dominant big man in Storrs.
He averaged 16 points, 13 boards and 9 blocks as a junior and hails from the same school that produced former Duke guard Jay Williams.
Bynum, who has been often compared to former UNC center Brendan Haywood, transferred from Solebury Prep and had to sit out the first 10 games of his junior campaign due to state transfer rules.