Former Tide player Pickett signs with Manhattan

The odyssey that is Rico Pickett's collegiate basketball career is taking a northern turn.

The Decatur High grad signed with Manhattan (N.Y.) College on Thursday evening. He played at Miami-Dade Community College last season following a rocky one-year stay at Alabama.

Florida and Connecticut also pursued the point guard, but Pickett said choosing the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference school wasn't difficult, ultimately.

The Gators, Pickett said, wanted him to play out of position at small forward and the former Red Raider wasn't sure just how interested coach Jim Calhoun and the Huskies really were in him.

"I wanted to go to a school where it would be based around me as the point guard," Pickett said.

Playing in the "big city and the bright lights" also helped make the decision final.

"New York is the Mecca of basketball," Pickett said. "Who wouldn't want to play here?"

A lot has changed, he said, since leaving the Crimson Tide program in 2008 after a freshman season in which he started 20 games and averaged 5.9 points a game.

Pickett was suspended by then-coach Mark Gottfried before leaving the Tide, but he now says he's "a lot more coachable" than he was in Tuscaloosa.

At Miami-Dade, he averaged 17.3 points and 4.5 assists a game while helping the team to a 26-2 regular-season record and a No. 2 ranking among junior colleges.

Manhattan College last played in the NCAA tournament in 2004 when it stunned Florida 75-60 in the opening round. Although named for New York's largest borough, the college's campus is located in the Bronx.