Saw this coming 10 years ago.. pretty soon, the NCAA will allow schools to recruit 5th graders, and it'll be all one can do to keep scouts out of city-league (supposedly innocent) basketball games.

Quote:OXON HILL, MD. -- Giving in to the young-and-younger movement in college basketball recruiting, the NCAA has decreed that seventh-graders are now officially classified as prospects.

The organization voted Thursday to change the definition of a prospect from ninth grade to seventh grade -- for men's basketball only -- to nip a trend in which some college coaches were working at private, elite camps and clinics for seventh- and eighth-graders. The NCAA couldn't regulate those camps because those youngsters fell below the current cutoff.

http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/story/1369498.html

What a joke...

This isn't new. They recruit kids into elementary school. Coach K, and Steve Fisher were recruiting Shane Battier at age 10.

awsome... other than a few "Golden Childs" out there its extremely hard to judge how good an 16-17-18 year old will be let alone a 12 year old boy.

This is good, maybe some kids will give up their basketball dream earlier and become musicians! Pick up a real axe kids!!!!!

(01-16-2009 11:22 AM)animus Wrote:  awsome... other than a few "Golden Childs" out there its extremely hard to judge how good an 16-17-18 year old will be let alone a 12 year old boy.

Shane Battier was 6'5'' at age 10.

If they get a kid to commit, and promise them a scholarship while they're so young, and the kid doesn't pan out like they thought in high school, the kid should get the scholarship anyway. If they're going to allow this, the teams should be prepared for their speculation to work out - successfully or not...

(01-16-2009 12:05 PM)firmbizzle Wrote:  

(01-16-2009 11:22 AM)animus Wrote:  awsome... other than a few "Golden Childs" out there its extremely hard to judge how good an 16-17-18 year old will be let alone a 12 year old boy.

Shane Battier was 6'5'' at age 10.

Did he have a wrinkly head then too?

(01-17-2009 05:18 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(01-16-2009 12:05 PM)firmbizzle Wrote:  

(01-16-2009 11:22 AM)animus Wrote:  awsome... other than a few "Golden Childs" out there its extremely hard to judge how good an 16-17-18 year old will be let alone a 12 year old boy.

Shane Battier was 6'5'' at age 10.

Did he have a wrinkly head then too?

Don't know, he had a flat top.

You know, I was a can't-miss prospect at age 10, unfortunately I didn't pan out

(01-17-2009 06:04 PM)firmbizzle Wrote:  

(01-17-2009 05:18 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(01-16-2009 12:05 PM)firmbizzle Wrote:  

(01-16-2009 11:22 AM)animus Wrote:  awsome... other than a few "Golden Childs" out there its extremely hard to judge how good an 16-17-18 year old will be let alone a 12 year old boy.

Shane Battier was 6'5'' at age 10.

Did he have a wrinkly head then too?

Don't know, he had a flat top.

Old school, old school!

This is B.S and should not be allowed. Sophmores in high school thats a starting point not middle school

Personally, I think coaches shouldn't be allowed any contact until the start of a kid's junior year in high school.

Way to read the article, guys.

By lowering the age, they're trying protecting the kids. Right now, it's the Wild West for middle-schoolers. NCAA can't police (or pretend to police) their coaches' actions without classifying the kids as prospects.

ESPN's Page 2 did a joke column on this subject and used Calipari as the test case (i.e. HC offering scholarships to 7th graders).

It was somewhat "shocking" that ESPN pull this off their website: