Back and forth they went. Bucket-for-bucket, Dion Waiters and DaJuan Wagner one-upped each other up and down the court. The 16-year-old high school junior and the 25-year-old pro turned preseason summer games into spectacles.

Wilson Arroyo, the director of basketball operations at Life Center Academy (N.J.), couldn’t help but enjoy the show. Waiters, his flashy new prospect. Wagner, the former sixth-overall pick trying to make an NBA comeback. Games got ‘intense,’ Waiters said. During and after Life Center’s open-gym practices, Arroyo’s prep team played Wagner and others in 5-on-5 pick-up games.

But Waiters v. Wagner drama usually stole the show.

‘Oh my goodness. I’m sure people would’ve paid to watch the show,’ Arroyo said. ‘It was high-level basketball, that’s for sure. They went right at each other.’

Playing against Wagner, this year’s 12th overall pick Jason Thompson and a handful of other NBA hopefuls, Waiters continued to polish his attack-the-basket style. The 6-foot-3, 195-pound guard is transitioning into a new stage along an unorthodox trail to Syracuse. He verbally committed to SU before playing one minute of high school ball and has bounced around various high schools and prep schools since.

As a freshman two years ago, Waiters was kicked out of a Philadelphia-area high school. He didn’t play basketball and finished the year at a different school. Waiters then transferred to South Kent Prep (Conn.), where he was suspended toward the end of last season for conduct detrimental to the team. So he packed up and transferred, again. This time, to Life Center, a private school in Burlington, N.J.

Waiters is rated the fifth-best shooting guard prospect in his recruiting class, according to Scout.com. But amid all the AAU tournaments and an array of all-star games, Waiters needed a high school for two more years to clean up academically. Needed buffer to get him on track to Syracuse – where his cousin, sophomore guard Scoop Jardine, awaits.

‘He tells me the good and the bad,’ Waiters said of Jardine. ‘The crowd and all that. Playing for a big team – the fans rushing the floor and all that.’

The bad? ‘He said you gotta do everything right because everybody’s watching.’

But by no means is Waiters hurting for confidence. His terse tone sure doesn’t hint at any sense of apprehension. Despite his nomadic trek through high school and the two full years of high school basketball ahead of him, Waiters doesn’t waver.

‘I can do it all. Everything,’ Waiters said. ‘Everything.’

Waiters nor Arroyo offered details as to what precisely prompted the guard’s suspension at South Kent. But at the break-up’s root was the departure of head coach, Raphael Chillious, who took a job with Nike.

With a new coach came a new philosophy – which didn’t sit well with Waiters. That 180-mile distance from home didn’t help, either.

‘A new coach came in and had a little different philosophy and obviously it wasn’t the coach that Dion went there for,’ Arroyo said. ‘And being the fact that it was pretty exclusive in the mountains of South Connecticut, that really wasn’t something that he wanted. It was too far from civilization.’

Life Center’s proximity and prestige fit the criteria of the five-star recruit, per Scout.com.

After seeing Waiters play in a summer league game, Arroyo immediately called his AAU coach and sparked a connection. The interest was easily reciprocated. Life Center is only 25 minutes from Waiters’ hometown of Philadelphia, and the program fits the criteria of a future NBA hopeful. Life Center recently built a $13 million sports complex, and the basketball team plays against ‘five or six of the top 25 teams in the country,’ Arroyo said.

On his first visit, Waiters was sold. And on mom’s first visit, the paperwork was filled out.

‘We’re just looking forward to the basketball season and helping him get to Syracuse,’ Arroyo said. ‘One of the big reasons for him to come here was for qualifying purposes.’

Life Center offers free SAT tutors and the core classes Waiters lacks. Arroyo said the school has designed an ‘academic track’ to get Waiters into SU. Considering Syracuse recruit James Southerland was forced to stay in high school an extra year due to a subpar SAT score, this factor was key.

Arroyo, a 1975 graduate of Life Center, said the school has sent 30 players to Division I basketball programs. Waiters now adds a 35-game schedule full of powerhouses to those hordes of all-star games, such as the Nike Global Challenge. Life Center’s slate includes Saint Benedicts, St. Patrick’s, Saint Anthony High School and probably Oak Hill (Va.) Academy – Carmelo Anthony’s old stomping grounds – in the championship of its opening tournament.

‘I think we have one of the toughest schedules in the country … (Waiters) will play against a lot of the guys he’ll probably play against at some point in college – guys that have signed with North Carolina, Duke, Villanova and other schools.’

One guy Waiters will not face is Wagner, who once scored 100 points in a high school game. Still, their summer duels gave Arroyo enough proof. He knows Waiters is ready for Syracuse after witnessing those heavyweight bouts.

‘Watching those two play against each other was amazing,’ Arroyo said. ‘Watching Dion and him go back and forth, I can tell that Dion is already almost at that level.’

thdunne@syr.edu

Published on October 6, 2008 at 12:00 pm