Bradley Beal, one of the top basketball prospects in the country, said today he will attend Florida. Beal, a shooting guard, had narrowed his choices to Missouri, Kansas, Illinois and Florida. He also was considering SLU, Duke and Ohio State. Beal is still just a junior at Chaminade and he will not officially sign a letter of intent until November of 2010 and not start playing in college until the fall of 2011.
Beal follows in the path of David Lee, who played for Chaminade and went to Florida as well. Lee is with the New York Knicks. This summer, Beal led the U.S. under-16 national team to the gold medal in the world championships in Argentina. Beal, who led Chaminade to the Class 5 state championship last season, scored 26 points in the 101-87 championship win over Argentina. The performance added to Beal’s growing stature as one of the country’s best players in the Class of 2011 and potentially one of the finest in St. Louis over the last decade. He averaged 19 points in the team’s five wins to help the United States earn a spot in next year’s under-17 world championships in Germany. After the trip to Argentina, Beal was ranked the No. 1 shooting guard and No. 9 player overall in his class by Scout.com.
