NEW YORK — It was the first week of January 2006 and Jeremy Lin was “dead set on going to Stanford” out of Palo Alto High School.

This, according to Peter Diepenbrock, Lin’s high school coach.

The problem was that then-Stanford coach Trent Johnson “[messed] this thing up bad, really bad,” Diepenbrock told SNY.tv Friday by phone hours before Lin went off for a career-high 38 points to go with seven assists in the Knicks’ 92-85 victory over Kobe Bryant and the Lakers at Madison Square Garden.

According to Diepenbrock, during that January 2006 meeting in Johnson’s office with Lin, Lin’s mother, Shirley, and Diepenbrock, Johnson said he had only one scholarship remaining for the 2006-7 season after three players – Will Paul and future NBA players Brook and Robin Lopez — had signed in the fall.

“We really want you on the team,” Diepenbrock recalled Johnson saying to Lin.

“What about a scholarship?” Shirley asked.

Her son didn’t have a single Division I scholarship offer despite being en route to leading his team to a California Interscholastic Federation Division II title and earning All-State honors.

According to Diepenbrock, Johnson said he was recruiting two other guys, adding, “Whichever one of these two guys commits, that’s who we’re going to give it to.”

“If neither of them comes, can Jeremy have the one scholarship?” Diepenbrock recalled Shirley asking

“If they don’t come, definitely, definitely,” he recalled Johnson saying.

“It’s reasonable of him to say that,” Diepenbrock told Shirley.

Johnson said by phone that he already had enough players committed and wanted Lin to walk on that year.

“Walk on fine, scholarship the following year, that’s what I remember,” Johnson said.

Johnson added that it’s not his policy to over-recruit because ultimately that’s not good for anyone.

“I don’t over-recruit,” Johnson said. “They’re not very happy and they leave.”

He added that there were a “lot of people who didn’t offer him the opportunity to walk-on.”

By early February 2006, Stanford accepted commitments from two additional players, giving them a five-man recruiting class.

Their names?

One was Landry Fields, a wing who chose Stanford over Arizona. He, of course, is now the current starting shooting guard on the Knicks.

The other was Da’Veed Dildy, a 6-5 point guard out of Chicago whom Johnson had courted heavily.

“They both commit and they both get scholarships,” Diepenbrock said.

“Oh, boy did that not go over.”

Diepenbrock said Lin and his mother were so turned off by what happened, that when a Stanford assistant tried calling Lin later on to get him to walk-on, he never returned the calls.

“Come on, coach, I can’t play for somebody I can’t trust,” Diepenbrock recalled Lin saying.

According to the Scout.com database, the Stanford recruiting class ultimately included five players.

Asked after the Knicks game if he was even aware Stanford was recruiting Lin at the time, Fields said, “No, not at all.”

Should they have used a scholarship on him?

“Maybe, you don’t know,” Fields said. “It’s in the past. And things might not have worked out for him the way they are right now because stuff happens.”

Lin ultimately landed at Harvard, which, along with Brown, were the only schools to guarantee him a spot on the roster.

He played four years for Tommy Amaker and went undrafted out of Harvard in 2010.

The kicker to the story is that when another scholarship opened up at Stanford in April 2006 after Tim Morris announced he was transferring, Diepenbrock said he went over to Johnson’s office to see if they would give it to Lin.

“You got a scholarship, what about Jeremy?” the coach recalled asking.

“Why didn’t Jeremy just walk on?” Diepenbrock recalled Johnson asking. “What happened?”

“You told him you had one scholarship left and all of a sudden you had two,” Diepenbrock said.

“Oh, you misunderstood,” Diepenbrock recalled Johnson saying. “I said I had one for a point guard.”

Johnson isn’t the only basketball person to have passed on Lin in recent years.

Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey, whose team released Lin in December, Tweeted this week: ”We should have kept [Jeremy Lin]. Did not know he was this good. Anyone who says they knew misleading U.”

Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni says it’s hard to argue with anyone who missed out on Lin.

“This is hard to predict,” D’Antoni said. “It’s like winning the lottery or something like that. Landry Fields, we had no idea he could help us.”

For his part, Johnson said he wishes Lin nothing but the best.

“One of the things that I feel really good about is that it’s worked out for Jeremy and it’s continued to wok out for him,” Johnson said.  “He’s going to continue to get better.”

Lakers star Kobe Bryant was quoted before the game as saying he didn’t know who Lin was.

After the Knicks beat Bryant at the Garden for the first time since 2005 thanks largely to Lin’s performance, Bryant was asked if Lin had truly come out of nowhere.

“Players don’t usually come out of nowhere,” Kobe said. “If you can go back and take a look, his skill level was probably there from the beginning and no one ever noticed.”

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NEW YORK — Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni is missing Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire.

But he’s also hoping Jorts returns soon, too.

“I had no idea I’d be sitting here saying I can’t wait till Josh Harrellson gets back,” D’Antoni said Friday night at MSG before the Knicks host Kobe Bryant and the Lakers.

The 6-foot-10 Harrellson remains out approximately another three weeks after fracturing his right wrist Jan. 21 against the Nuggets.

A pleasant surprise with his work ethic, hustle and 3-point shooting ability, he is averaging 5.5 points and 4.2 rebounds on the season.

D’Antoni reiterated that Stoudemire would return to practice Monday after mourning the death of his brother, Hazell, in a car accident last Monday.

Anthony is “getting closer” to returning from a right groin injury sustained this past Monday against the Jazz, D’Antoni said. He was originally diagnosed as being out 1-2 weeks.

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This will be a huge weekend for the future of the Syracuse basketball team — and not just because the No. 2 Orange are hosting defending national champion UConn.

The Orange will play host to a couple of recruits who could well influence the future of their program.

Nerlens Noel, a 6-foot-10 shot-blocking center from the Tilton (N.H.) School who is in the midst of reclassifying to 2012, and Tyler Ennis of St. Benedict’s Prep, arguably the top point guard in the Class of 2013, will both be on campus.

“It’s a great thing for Syracuse, that’s for sure,” St. Benedict’s coach Mark Taylor told SNY.tv. “Those two [potentially] playing together, it’s a great fit.”

“Noel will fit in great because of his ability to block shots with that zone they play. I told Tyler it fits his game as well with his length on defense and his IQ and his anticipation playing that zone. And his ability to run out of that zone. It’s a great fit for both of them and playing together it would hard to beat that.”

The odds of them actually playing together remain slim. Even if both pick Syracuse, Noel is projected as the No. 1 pick in the 2013 NBA Draft and would be gone before Ennis, a native of Toronto, ever steps on campus.

Still, both players remain open.

Noel still plans to visit Kentucky later this month and is also considering Providence, Georgetown, North Carolina and Florida, among others.

Ennis, who is at Syracuse now but will return in time for the big game against St. Patrick on Sunday in the PrimeTime Shootout at Roselle (N.J.) Catholic, is also mulling Georgia Tech, Kansas, Arizona and Louisville, among others.

He and his father are still planning dates for other visits.

“No question, he’s wide open,” Taylor, whose team is No. 12 in the Five Star Power Rankings, said of Ennis.

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GREENBURGH, N.Y. — If you believe everything you read these days, Jeremy Lin is single-handedly responsible for the Knicks’ modest three-game winning streak.

And Steve Novak will be the first to give Linsanity its just due.

“Everyone’s been able to see how valuable [he is], the way he gets in the paint on offense and finds guys, how valuable that is,” Novak, whose team meets Kobe Bryant and the Lakers tonight at Madison Square Garden, said earlier this week at the Knicks training facility.

Novak, perhaps more than any other Knick, has benefitted from Lin’s passing.

The former Marquette standout has scored 19 points in each of his last two games — wins over Utah and at Washington — and is 10-for-17 from beyond the arc in those games. Of Lin’s 18 assists in the last two games, 10 have gone to Novak.

“I think you’re really starting to see our offense come together when we have that kind of penetration and that kind of finding guys,” Novak said in crediting Lin, the second-year sensation from Harvard.

“And it’s contagious because other guys know, ‘I’m going to get the ball from him or I’m going to make the next pass because the next time down he’s going to find me again.”

The Knicks picked up the 6-foot-10 Novak — a 41.7 percent career 3-point shooter — in late December after he was released by the San Antonio Spurs

But he never scored more than nine points in a game for the Knicks until this month, when both Amar’e Stoudemire (brother’s death) and Carmelo Anthony (groin) have been absent from the lineup. Both of those players will miss at least two more games.

“At this point, I think we all know, you’re in the NBA for a reason,” Novak, 27, said of his back-to-back 19-point games. “Everybody can play. Anybody can have a huge game.”

Novak played four years at Marquette for former coach Tom Crean and was drafted in the second round of the 2006 NBA Draft by the Houston Rockets.

Even after bouncing around the NBA and the D-League, Novak remains close to his Marquette roots and current coach Buzz Williams.

“I work out there all summer,” he said. “I live five minutes from Marquette and play five-on-five with those guys and stay in touch. It’s definitely still my family.”

During those summer workouts, Novak sometimes goes up against the famous Marquette product of all time, Dwyane Wade, as well as fellow NBA players Jimmy Butler, Wesley Matthews and Lazar Hayward. 

“Whenever you go to a school and you have those bonds with your teammates, it’s special,” he said. “But then to carry it over to another league it’s pretty fun.

“And obviously, Dwyane has kind of paved the way for everybody and he’s done a great job and made a great name for Marquette. And there’s been quite a few guys after.”

One of them is Novak, who appears to have been swallowed up by Linsanity.

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The news that West Virginia has reached a $20 million settlement to leave the Big East Conference this year means that the school’s basketball team has only six more regular season games left in the conference.

Bob Huggins and the Mountaineers will play Louisville Saturday in the first of their final half dozen games before the school joins the Big 12 July 1.

“This is our third straight year that we have come to West Virginia,” Louisville coach Rick Pitino said last week. “I always request it every year. Generally you would see in the Big East that somebody would come back to you the following year, but [Big East Commissioner] John Marinatto’s a dear friend and I always tell him, ‘Look, don’t let West Virginia come to Louisville. I’d like to visit one more time.’

“And now it adds extra meaning because they’re going into the Big 12 so it will be the last time we play against each other.”

After Louisville, West Virginia has games at Pittsburgh (Feb. 16), at Notre Dame (Feb. 22), home for Marquette (Feb. 24) and DePaul (Feb. 28) and at South Florida (March 3).

The Big East Tournament runs March 6-10 at Madison Square Garden.

Kevin Jones, the presumptive Big East Player of the Year from Mount Vernon, N.Y., said last fall the league wouldn’t have the same “feel” without West Virginia.

“It’s not going to really affect me or Truck [Bryant], but I just feel sorry for my teammates and the players that it will affect in the future,” Jones told SNY.tv at Big East media day.

“Of course I will be coming and watching games and watching games on TV, but it just won’t have that same feel if it wasn’t the same Big East that I played in.”

Mount Vernon coach Bob Cimmino echoed similar feelings. He sent Jones and current West Virginia freshman guard Jabarie Hinds to West Virginia and then enjoyed seeming them return to Madison Square Garden, Seton Hall and Rutgers.

Now he’ll have to travel to Big 12 territory to see Hinds play live beginning next year.

“Of course, I’m like everybody else out here,” Cimmino told SNY.tv earlier this year. “I’m mourning the disintegration of the great Big East that I grew up with. To this day, I think it was the best league that there ever was so it hurts.”

For the recruits signed to play at West Virginia beginning in 2012, they will never know what it’s like to play in the Big East or at the Garden.

Elijah Macon is a senior power forward at Huntington (West Va.) Prep signed to play with West Virginia next year.

“He didn’t really care regardless of what conference they were going in,” Huntington Prep coach Rob Fulford, whose team meets St. Anthony Saturday in the PrimeTime Shootout at Roselle Catholic High School, told SNY.tv earlier this year. “He picked West Virginia for their style of play and I think it fits him very well.”

Fulford believes the school had to make the move to the Big 12 for football, basketball be damned.

“Being from here, obviously they needed to make a move for football and the Big 12 is going to be a better conference for West Virginia from a football standpoint,” Fulford said. “I think they needed to take a chance to see where the basketball would take them.”

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The Iceman is headed to Iona.

Ice Asortse,  a 6-foot-7, 238-pound forward from Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, has pledged to play for head coach Tim Cluess and associate head coach Jared Grasso.

“I have verbally committed to Iona a minute ago,” Asortse told SNY.tv.

“They have a very good basketball program and are located in a good location near New York City where there are a lot of opportunities,” he added. “They’ve been recruiting me since my freshman year.”

SNY.tv was the first to report last month that Asortse listed Iona as his top choice.

He’s averaging 10.8 points and 9.0 rebounds and can play both power forward and center.

“I love cleaning the boards and really want to work more on my offense so that I will always cause mismatch problems on the floor every time,” he said.

After averaging 10.1 points and 9.3 rebounds, Asortse was named the Offensive Player of the year last season on a Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College team that went 21-6 and won its first MACJC title since 1992.

Iona has had great success with junior college players, most notably Mike Glover, the Preseason MAAC Player of the Year.

The Gaels also have JUCO point guard DaShawn Gomez coming in next fall, and 6-8 forward David Laury is in the pipeline for January 2013.

As for Asortse, he watches Glover on TV and hopes to follow in his footsteps.

“He loves Glover’s game and wants to step in for him,” said Joe Boncore, who trains Asortse.

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Shabazz Muhammad, the top wing player in the Class of 2012, says he is targeting a college decision sometime after the basketball season ends.

“I don’t think I’m that close at all,” the 6-foot-6 Muhammad out of Las Vegas Bishop Gorman told ESPNU after he was named a McDonald’s All-American.

“I really havne’t been looking at it. Just been working on this season for high school, but when I get down to it it’s going to be really stressful for me. But I’m just going to talk to my family and talk it over with them.”

Asked if he had a timeframe in mind, Muhammad said, “Sometime in April, I think that would be the appropriate time for me after this basketball season to really sit and talk to the coaches and go from there.”

Muhammad is considering UCLA, UNLV, Kansas, Kentucky, Duke and Arizona.

He has already tripped officially to Kentucky and Texas A&M, and is planning on visiting Duke March 1.

He and his family are still planning dates for official visits to Kansas and Arizona. Muhammad has said he’ll likely take unofficials to UCLA and UNLV.

Kentucky coach John Calipari recently tripped to Las Vegas to watch Muhammad play, and UNLV coach Dave Rice watched Wednesday night as Muhammad put up 38 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists in an 86-73 win over Clark High.

Photo: ESPN.com

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The 2012 McDonald’s All-American Teams were announced Thursday on ESPNU. The game is slated for March 28 at the United Center in Chicago and will be shown live on ESPN (9:30).

EAST

Perry Ellis, PF, Kansas

Shaq Goodwin, PF, Memphis

Amile Jefferson, F, Undecided

Tony Parker, C, Undecided

Alex Poythress, PF, Kentucky

T.J. Warren, F, N.C. State

DaJuan Coleman, C, Syracuse

Kyle Anderson, F, UCLA

Kris Dunn, PG, Providence

Gary Harris, G, Michigan St.

Tyler Lewis, PG, NC. State

Rodney Purvis, G, N.C. State

WEST

Brandon Ashley, PF, Arizona

Isaiah Austin, C, Baylor

Anthony Bennett, F, Undecided

Grant Jerrett, PF, Arizona

Shabazz Muhammad, F, Undecided

Devonta Pollard, PF, Undecided

Cameron Ridley, C, Texas

Marcus Paige, PG, North Carolina

Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell, PG, Indiana

Archie Goodwin, G, Kentucky

Marcus Smart, G, Oklahoma St.

Rasheed Sulaimon, G, Duke

MOST ALL-AMERICAN ALL TIME (PER ESPN)

North Carolina – 63

Duke – 50

Kentucky – 33

UCLA – 30

Kansas – 27

**Those schools combined for 6 All-Americans this year.

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NEW YORK — Big East Commissioner John Marinatto may not want to give Rick Pitino any credit for Memphis coming to the Big East, but Josh Pastner certainly does.

“We play Louisville next year as part of a home-and-home series,” Pastner, the Memphis coach, told SNY.tv during Thursday’s edition of “The Big East Report.”

“I really believe Coach Pitino deserves a standing ovation when Louisville comes here because one of the main reasons we got into the Big East was through Coach Pitino’s public politicking for us to get in.”

Pitino told SNY.tv last fall that Memphis would be “an awesome addition” to the Big East in the wake of Syracuse, Pittsburgh and West Virginia leaving, and reiterated those comments Thursday on “SiriuxXm’s Inside College Basketball” with Jeff Goodman and Bruce Pearl.

“In terms of the culture of Big East basketball, we needed an inner city school, a Top 20 program, and right now we get Memphis who would automatically now become the second largest crowd,” Pitino said.

“They average 16,500.  They’ll average 18,000 now being in the Big East.  This is going to sound shocking to you but their APR would be second in the Big East.  Their facilities would rank them in the top 5 in the Big East.  So we needed this, a big shot in the arm for us.  I think we’re going to probably still add one more team.”

Consistent with comments he previously made to SNY.tv, Pitino still believes Temple could be that team.

“Me personally, it’s Temple,” he told Goodman and Pearl. “But, you know, I’m not the commissioner and I’m not the presidents.  People say that Villanova is fighting it.  I don’t understand because South Florida had to say, ‘Look, we don’t like it but we’ll take Central Florida.  If that’s in the best interests of the conference, we’ll do it.’  And Villanova’s going to have to say, ‘If it’s in the best interests of the conference, we’ll do it.’

“So everybody’s gotta start thinking, the only agenda is how can the Big East be strong?  Now, Temple, I think, is the logical, again, it’s an inner city school, Philadelphia, great coach, great tradition.  I think it’s a natural.  Good football program.  But I don’t know if some other people would agree with that. I’ve always said that Memphis and Temple make the most sense.”

Like Pitino before him, Pastner will be coming over to the Big East from Conference-USA, where Memphis, especially under former coach John Calipari, has at times dominated its opponents.

“I want to say that Conference-USA is a terrific basketball league,” said Pastner, whose Tigers are 17-7, 7-2 in the conference and boast 18,000 season ticket-holders. “It’s very, very under-valued. It’s very under-appreciated both locally and nationally by the media….Conference-USA does not get the respect that it deserves.”

Still, Pastner said coming to the Big East in 2013 would be an “honor and privilege.”

“I mean, the Big East, you’re talking about a league that is known as maybe the best basketball league for 20, 30, 40 years,” he said.

Paster said he had no dramatic plans to alter his recruiting philosophy once his team joins the new league.

“We’re a national program,” he said, “and we recruit nationally. You look at our last couple recruiting classes, we recruit at a very high level, we’ve signed high-level guys….This is a players’ game, and that what’s your focus is, going to get the best players.”

He will need the best players to compete in the new conference even if this isn’t your father’s Big East.

Georgetown coach John Thompson III, whose team has played Memphis the last two years out of conference, believes the Tigers are joining an elite conference.

“When you start talking about Syracuse and people leaving, all that meant is that we went from unquestionably the best basketball conference to now we’re arguably the best basketball conference,” Thompson III said on the Big East conference call.

“And so they’re coming into what is probably going to still be the best basketball conference.”

Like Pitino, West Virginia coach Bob Huggins has also coached in Conference-USA and in the Big East.

Yet while West Virginia is on its way out – perhaps as early as this year – Memphis is coming in.

Asked how he thought Memphis would make the transition, Huggins said:

“That’s hard to answer because the truth of the matter is a third of the  Big East was in Conference-USA when I was in Conference-USA. I mean, Rick was at Louisville, Cal was at Memphis, DePaul had Quentin Richardson, Marquette was good. Tommy [Crean] was doing a great job at Marquette.”

He added: “They’ve got a heck of a basketball program. Cal did a great job getting it going and Josh has kept it going. They’ve got a great, great fan base. Their base is absolutely terrific. They travel. You’ll see them everywhere in the league.”

Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon said it was “bittersweet” that his team was leaving the Big East for the ACC, along with Syracuse.

But he said he believes the Big East did the right thing in adding schools like Memphis, Houston, SMU and UCF.

“They’ve definitely solidified the conference and we’re very glad for that and we’re glad to see that Memphis and all the other teams that they’re adding bring something,” Dixon said. “Everybody brings something different to the table and they all bring some value.

“That is key. They didn’t fill with just numbers. They filled with teams that brought a certain value and strength to the conference in different ways. And I think the plan that they’ve followed has really worked out well for the Big East.”

Now, it’s just a matter of getting Pitino that standing O in Memphis.

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Memphis has landed its first verbal commitment since officially joining the Big East Conference.

Geron Johnson, a 6-foot-3 combo guard from Dayton (Ohio) Garden City College averaging 19 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists, pledged to the Tigers Thursday.

“I think he really was excited about playing for Coach [Josh] Pastner,” Garden City coach Kris Baumann told SNY.tv.  “I think he was excited about them going to the Big East his senior year.”

Johnson also considered Kansas, Wichita State, Marshall and Washington, but only visited Kansas and Memphis.

“I know coach [Damon] Stoudamire being on the staff was a big influence on him as well,” Baumann said. “Geron has visions of himself being an NBA player someday and he really wanted to work with a guy that can teach him about how to play at that level. I think there were just a lot of things he really liked and thought it would be a good fit for him.”

Baumann said he doesn’t think Johnson is a one-and-done, and thus he will get to play in the Big East in the 2013-14 season.

“I think he plans on being there two years and getting his degree,” he said. “I think he’s going to play both his junior and senior year and then get his degree. That’s pretty much what he has planned, but you never know.”

Johnson joins Shaq Goodwin, a 6-8 power forward from Decatur, Ga., and 6-5 small forward Damien Wilson of Oak Hill Academy in Memphis’ 2012 recruiting class.

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