The Price of pain

When it happened, it didn't look like much.

A.J. Price simply planted his left leg to juke San Diego's Tremaine Johnson and went sprawling to the ground.

He was going to get up. He was going to walk it off and keep playing. He was going to lead fourth-seeded UConn to a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. That's how it was supposed to happen. But it didn't.

When Price couldn't put any weight on his left leg, the most dangerous three-letter acronym in sports crossed the minds of UConn fans and players: ACL.

An MRI the next day confirmed what the world suspected - Price, UConn's Second-Team All-American point guard, a player who had battled through so much adversity to reach that point, had suffered a torn ACL. It seemed like the cherry on top of a brutal string of misfortune, a fitting ending to a career that just wasn't meant to be.

"I'm really concerned about A.J.," coach Jim Calhoun said after the first-round loss to San Diego. "Particularly with the things he's been through and the comeback he's made, to have something like that happen."

Price's career took a wrong turn from the get-go.

When Price came to UConn via Amityville, N.Y., he was touted as one of the best high school players in the nation. He was the missing piece to a squad with enough talent to win a national championship. Calhoun called him the "best player in the program" as a true freshman.

Before Price ever played a game, however, he suffered a rare brain hemorrhage that not only kept him out of the entire season, but nearly killed him.

The road back was a struggle. Only after a year of extensive rehabilitation was Price finally declared healthy enough to play again.

Weeks later, just prior to the beginning of the fall semester in 2005, Price made what he calls "the biggest mistake of his life."

He and fellow point guard Marcus Williams, now with the Golden State Warriors, stole five laptops from a dormitory and attempted to sell them at a Mansfield pawn shop. Price was arrested, suspended from school and ordered to serve 400 hours of community service. For the second straight season, Price was a spectator, merely a faceless name in a UConn program that was moving on without him.

"When I was sitting out those two years, that's exactly what I was doing - sitting out," Price said. "My mental state was down. I mean, I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing. I wasn't playing basketball."

Instead, Price was back in his hometown working for a contracting company. He didn't work on his game, he didn't workout - he didn't even play recreationally.

When he was reinstated, Price struggled, to say the least. His legs were tired - and it showed. Price shot just 38 percent from the field and 27 percent from 3-point range in UConn's dismal 17-14 2006-2007 campaign.

That's why, when Price was named First Team All-Big East and Second Team All-American for the 24-9 Huskies last year, his torn ACL was that much more crushing.

When that ligament snapped, it seemed like the hopes of resurrecting a collegiate career went with it. Price's four-year run was destined to end with the same misfortune it began with.

But Price wasn't buying it.

From the second after the injury occurred, Price went 100 percent on his rehab. There wasn't a wasted minute in his day. When he couldn't get on the court, he was working on strengthening his knee. He was in the weight room everyday maintaining his upper body strength.

"He kept calling me and asked me to come down from Boston to work out with him," Adrien said. "I was like 'I can't just come down there now, man.'"

Three months after his injury, Price was back on the court. One day, Adrien walked into the gym and saw Price performing the "Mikan Drill." The drill itself - a series of left-handed and right-handed lay-ups - isn't anything astonishing, but the fact that Price was jumping blew Adrien away.

"Chill out, man, you're not supposed to be doing that," Adrien recalls telling him. "But he told me he felt fine. Ever since then, I've had total confidence that he'd be able to come back."

And he has.

According to Adrien, Price is quicker than he was before the injury. He ices his knees after practice and exhibition games, but other than that, he miraculously shows no ill effects from an injury that is notorious for ending careers.

"It's amazing," Adrien said. "He wears a knee sleeve because it just looks cool. He calls it the Kobe. He doesn't even need to wear it."

Price doesn't consider it to be amazing at all. He considers his improbable return to be the product of hard work, the result of buying into a rehab program prescribed by first-class trainers. Now, all healed up and set to start in Friday's opener for the No. 2 Huskies, Price has an opportunity to finish his rollercoaster career on a note that few do, to make everything - all the devastating injuries and the suspensions - worth it.

"I wouldn't change anything that happened," Price said. "Everything happens for a reason, and now I have one more chance to come back and do something special."