Cleanthony Early looked at the baseball cap in his hands last weekend — the one that had Wichita State and Final Four inscribed on it — and said, "I can't believe we're here."
He might as well have a similar tattoo etched across his heart, the one that was broken on June 27, 2010, when his older brother died in a freak drowning accident in an upstate New York creek.
He might as well have that sentiment inscribed on his sneakers, the ones he was told to hang up late in his junior year in high school when he was tossed off his Pine Bush (N.Y.) team because, in his words, he was a bit of a knucklehead.
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Cleanthony Early
He might as well have that written on the back of his luggage tag because if not for the fact his two-day NCAA visit to Wichita, Kan., home of this year's most shocking NCAA Tournament story, turned into a five-day stay because of flooding in the metropolitan area, Early might never have signed with the Shockers.
When a No. 9 seed crashes the Final Four, you know there's some strange magic taking place — none stranger than the tragic, triumphant, circuitous route taken by Middletown's Cleanthony Early.
"With all that he has gone through, it makes what is happening now so much sweeter,'' Sarah Glover, Early's mother, told The Post. "Only God knows what Clee has been through, what we have been through. Woo! People wonder why I am a woman of great faith and I tell them, 'Look at my son.' ''
Yes, let us look at Early, a 6-foot-8, 215-pound junior forward, who can put the ball on the floor, knock down the 3-pointer, lock up an opposing star player, rebound. As Shockers coach Gregg Marshall said, "I think he has a ceiling that is very high. I'm talking the highest level of professional basketball.''
WICHITA State, which faces No. 1 seed Louisville Saturday might well be the most improbable Final Four participant ever. Unlike most "mid-major" programs that make a March Madness run, these Shockers are not comprised of five senior starters who stuck it out.
Wichita State is a collection of under-the-radar junior college transfers and redemptive stories. Early, the quintessential late-bloomer, almost never made it to his senior season at Pine Bush, which straddles the border of Orange and Ulster counties.
"He was a young kid that didn't start out doing things the right way,'' his high school coach, John Salvatore, told The Post. "Grades, discipline, being on time, not a bad kid, but not a mature kid. Towards the end of his junior year, I told him he couldn't be a part of what we were doing.
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