Phil Martelli had heard of Dion Waiters. It just never occurred to Martelli to recruit him.

As far as Martelli, the head men’s basketball coach at Saint Joseph’s in Philadelphia, was concerned, Waiters was a ‘great, great young player’ in the city.

Emphasis on ‘young.’ Waiters was just 14 years old and in the eighth grade when Martelli learned of him. Waiters earned his reputation on the playgrounds and in AAU summer leagues rather than high school gymnasiums.

Waiters’ youth, combined with Martelli’s strategy of zeroing in on high school juniors in recruiting, prevented the St. Joe’s coach from actively pursuing Waiters so early.

Syracuse men’s basketball head coach Jim Boeheim didn’t have the same reservations. Boeheim and the SU coaching staff offered Waiters a scholarship this July after the 6-foot-2, 200-pound guard attended a Syracuse elite camp for the second year in a row.

At age 15, Waiters, who said he knew he wanted to wear Orange after attending the same camp a year before, verbally committed to Syracuse.

‘I was very excited; I knew I wanted to play there,’ Waiters said. ‘Just getting (the recruiting process) out of the way.’

All this before he even played a high school game. Waiters was kicked out of one Philadelphia-area school last year, and he didn’t play basketball while finishing his freshman year at another high school in the city. Yet if all goes according to plan, he will take the court for Syracuse in 2010.

Waiter’s verbal promise is hardly the first – or most extreme – example of what is a growing trend in the ultra-competitive basketball recruiting landscape. Following what Martelli termed the ‘herding mentality’ of college basketball, more coaches are offering scholarships to kids, some 15 years old or younger, in the hopes the player will develop into a blue-chip recruit.

The commitments are non-binding, meaning at any time either recruit or recruiter can dissolve the agreement. Still, it’s a trend that has some coaches, including Martelli, concerned.

‘I’m not sure that kids that age know whether they want a Pepsi or a Coke at lunchtime, much less where they want to go to college,’ Martelli said. ‘I don’t know if it’s a healthy turn of events for the kids or for college basketball, to be honest with you.’

For better or worse, the trend is hard to deny. According to Scout.com, 15 of the top 100 players from the 2010 high school graduating class have already verbally committed to a school. Ohio State has secured three of those pledges, while Kentucky and Baylor, which finished 9-7 and 4-12 in their conferences last season, have received two commitments from high school sophomores.

And those players aren’t even the youngest to make a tentative choice on their respective futures. This past summer, Southern California received a pledge from Ryan Boatwright, a 14-year-old point guard from Aurora, Ill. It was the second-straight year USC head coach Tim Floyd received a commitment from an eighth grader. A year earlier, he snagged forward Dwayne Polee Jr., now a sophomore at Westchester High School in Los Angeles.

As a coach who has already benefited from the trend, Boeheim didn’t see it as a problem.

‘If they commit to us, it’s good,’ Boeheim said about the trend. ‘I do think kids do commit earlier – sophomores are not unusual, juniors for sure. If they make up their mind, I mean, it’s imperfect whether you decide then or your junior or senior year. It’s a hard choice either way. I don’t think it’s that big of an issue.’

In the case of Waiters, Syracuse coaches spotted him at an open gym at Neumann-Goretti (Pa.) High School, where Waiters’ cousin, SU freshman guard Scoop Jardine, played. Waiters was an eighth grader competing against players three or four years his elder.

‘They saw him working out with the older kids; he pretty much drew their attention right then and there,’ Waiters AAU coach and Neumann-Goretti assistant Aaron Abbott said. ‘The coaches just couldn’t believe how mature he was, and after that, that was all she wrote.’

From there, Waiters attended Syracuse summer camps for the past two summers. After the second, Syracuse offered him a scholarship, which Waiters promptly accepted.

Verbal commitments are non-binding, and it’s no guarantee a player will end up at the school he originally chooses.

Despite the commitment’s lack of finality, there are obvious benefits for the early bloomers who make a decision so quickly. Recruits benefit from the national exposure they receive as pre-high school phenoms.

Others, including Waiters, are eager to forgo the bombardment of letters, phone calls and visits that make up the recruiting process.

‘The average kid would love to have that attention,’ Abbott said. ‘In his situation, I think that could have been a distraction. … So now he just has to focus on being a better kid and a better student.’

As for the schools dishing out offers to kids that can’t yet drive a car, they strengthen a bond with a touted recruit at minimal risk. At any point, a school can rescind its offer if it feels a recruit isn’t academically or athletically good enough.

It’s that sort of scenario that Martelli fears could repeat itself in the new recruiting atmosphere.

‘Suppose a program has to pull (an offer),’ Martelli said. ‘Yeah, you committed, but we found out you’re not good enough. That’s going to be a public relations nightmare.’

The earliest a player can officially sign is during a one-week ‘early’ signing period during the fall of his senior year of high school. That means Waiters won’t be able to formalize his future at SU until November 2009.

Before Waiters actually inks his national letter of intent, there’s little doubt that a slew of other suitors will come knocking. Abbott said Waiters has received some sort of contact or interest from almost every major program in the country.

College coaches are not permitted to make ‘direct contact,’ which includes phone calls, with a recruit before he starts his junior year. For that reason, when Baylor coaches called last April to offer a scholarship to Waxahachie (Texas) High School point guard Jamison Sterns, they couldn’t even talk to him directly.

At the time, Sterns was a 15-year-old freshman just a year removed from a trip to a Baylor camp. Baylor head coach Scott Drew could only call Sterns’ father, who then relayed the news to his son.

Drew declined comment on the issue for this story.

Similarly, Syracuse coaches called Abbott upon deciding Waiters was worth the risk of a scholarship.

The recruiting process is already heating up for Sterns, who said his father, James, a former-Baylor basketball player in the ’80s, receives at least three phone calls a week from different schools. Even so, the point guard said he is comfortable with his decision.

‘It’s gonna take a whole lot,’ Sterns said. ‘The only reason I’d choose another school is if Coach Drew leaves. That’d probably be the main reason.’

Yet Waxahachie head coach Lonnie Gaylor said the 5-foot-11 guard’s decision could waver when coaches are allowed to directly contact Sterns.

‘I’m sure right now it’s pretty strong, but the recruiting process can be pretty intense,’ Gaylor said. ‘I’m sure that when he’s a junior next year, there will be schools calling, trying to sway his opinion, and kids are easily swayed.’

Recruits changing their minds leading up to signing day isn’t totally uncommon. Current Duke freshman forward Taylor King originally committed at age 14 to play for UCLA, only to change his mind and choose Duke midway through his junior year at Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei High School.

Currently, the trend of offering scholarships to players so early exists almost exclusively among the Dukes and UCLAs of the college basketball world. Of the 11 schools who have received commitments from high school sophomores, none come from so-called ‘mid-major’ conferences.

Yet Martelli said as competition continues to intensify, the trend could begin to pervade through all levels of college basketball. With that comes the inherent risk of reaching deeper into the high school talent pool before coaches have had time to properly evaluate.

‘My assumption is that all things filter down, so I think you’ll certainly see it in the Atlantic 10,’ Martelli said. ‘I just think the chances of making a mistake – I think as you go deeper in classes, beyond the top 30 in the (sophomore) class, in high school, I think you have a real chance of making a mistake.’

Waiters figures preliminarily to be one of the top 30 players of his class. The guard finally has his high school situation figured out – he recently accepted a scholarship to play at South Kent School (Conn.), which has a lauded prep basketball program.

Only time will tell if both Waiters and Syracuse feel as strongly about each other as they do presently. But at least for now, the 15 year old seems to know what he wants.

‘Mentally, he’s already there,’ Abbott said. ‘If he could go there now, he’d be there, but unfortunately, he’s so young.’

Published on December 8, 2008 at 12:00 pm