Seen And Heard Around ABCD

The ABCD Camp is one of three events that go on during the first week of the July evaluation period, when college coaches are allowed to see (but not speak to) high school players. The other two camps were the Nike All-America in Indianapolis and the Adidas Superstar in suburban Atlanta.

At these camps, the happenings on the court are only part of the action. The other part takes places in the stands, where gossip percolates between the coaches, scouts and all the sundry observers on the scene. Here's a smattering of the chatter from Teaneck:

• David Stern says that the NBA's new 19-year age-minimum will keep his scouts out of high school gyms. So of course the first person I saw when I got to FDU this week was an NBA scout. When I mentioned Stern's line, the scout rolled his eyes and said, "When does that start?" The bottom line is, this age minimum will have, shall we say, a minimal effect on recruiting and scouting, no matter what Mr. Stern says.

• Speaking of the NBA, plenty of folks at ABCD remain mystified that Andrew Bynum, who would have been lucky to average 12 minutes a game at UConn next year, was selected 10th overall at this year's draft by the Los Angeles Lakers. Most people I talked to agreed that Randolph Morris was a much better player as a senior in high school than Bynum. Yet, based on one so-so year at Kentucky, Morris went completely undrafted, while Bynum goes in the lottery. Remember that next time you want to rip a player for jumping to the league at the first crack of daylight. Better to go too early than too late, I'd say.

• Another player who has been talked about since he was a ninth grader is Derrick Caracter, a 6-foot-9 forward at St. Patrick's High School in New Jersey. Caracter showed up at ABCD looking trimmer than ever and put in a very good week of work, especially during his matchup against Oden on Friday night. Caracter's recruitment is still pretty wide open, though he impressed Rick Pitino while attending Louisville's basketball camp last month.

• Junior forward J.R. Giddens, who recently announced he was transferring from Kansas after getting injured in a knife fight, visited New Mexico this week and is said to be interested in an SEC school as well.

• For the record, Oden was also at ABCD, but from what I could see he caught maybe three post passes all week. That's how guard-oriented the games are at these camp.

• Another player who really stood out was Kevin Love, a 6-foot-9, 250-pound junior from Lake Oswego, Ore. Love has been highly rated for a long time, so it's no surprise he played well. What was surprising was the fact he showed up at ABCD, even though he plays for one of Nike's top AAU teams, the Portland Legends. Love's father, Stan, who played for Oregon and spent a few years in the NBA, told me the folks at Nike didn't take the news very well that Kevin wanted to play at ABCD. "He never gets a chance to play against the kids who are here, because they don't come to the Nike tournaments," Stan told me. "Kevin is a 16-year-old kid who should be able to do what he wants. Last I checked, he wasn't under contract with anybody. He told me he has had more fun here than he has ever had." Incidentally, Stan's brother, Mike, is the lead singer for the Beach Boys.

• Looks like Lute Olson is getting ready to add Miles Simon to his coaching staff.

• Having Oden and his high school teammate from Indianapolis, point guard Mike Conley, commit to Ohio State can't be good news for chronically embattled Indiana coach Mike Davis -- especially coming one year after the two best players in Indiana, Josh McRoberts and Luke Zeller, opted for Duke and Notre Dame, respectively. Conley told me that the main reason he didn't want to go to IU was the slower tempo Davis likes to play, but he also conceded that the constant speculation about Davis' job status was also a factor. "It made me wonder a little bit," Conley said. "You want to believe that when you choose a school, the coach is going to be there for a while. You don't want to go somewhere and then have to play for a new coach who didn't recruit you."

• One interesting -- and interested -- observer in attendance Thursday night was New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey, a huge hoops fan who played for Bill Raftery at FDU-Madison many moons ago. Cody still coaches two travel teams and introduced me to an 11-year-old point guard who he said "runs the team like a high school senior." While he was president of the New Jersey state senate, Cody became a registered recruiting agent for Seton Hall, back when the NCAA allowed boosters to assume such positions. "I used to call myself king of the 'bumps,'" Cody said, referring to the tactic of "accidentally" bumping into recruits during non-contact periods. "I knew just where to stand so I could bump into 'em and say hello."

• Another intriguing prospect at ABCD was Jianghua Chen, a 6-foot-1 point guard from China. His play seemed pretty pedestrian for most of the week until he opened a game Friday afternoon with a sweet baseline dunk, causing his teammates to erupt. He brought an interpreter, who was telling people that Chen came to ABCD to get exposure that would help him get into the NBA, not college. Sounds to me like he's ready for American hoops.

• You think coaches get a little tunnel vision during recruiting season? Check out this exchange I had during a phone conversation with a major head coach Friday morning. The coach, whom I had seen at ABCD early in the week, was in Atlanta and on his way to Indianapolis. I asked him if his travel schedule was going to be affected by the impending arrival of Hurricane Dennis.

"I don't even know about it," he said. "I haven't seen a newspaper or watched television all week."

"I assume you know what happened in London yesterday," I said, totally kidding.

His reply, totally not kidding: "No. What happened in London?"

• Finally, it's quite apparent that no recruiting could ever get done without cell phones. Coaches use cell phones like the rest of us use air. Thus, I hereiwth pass along three cell-phone related vignettes:

1) On Wednesday afternoon, I heard a voice behind me and turned to see N.C. State assistant coach Larry Harris looking in my direction and talking. I tried talking back, but he shook his head and held up his phone. I thought he was trying to show me who he was talking to until he turned his head and pointed to the bluetooth headset in his right ear. At least he has an explanation for the voices in his head.

2) During one session, I noticed a cell phone sitting by its lonesome one row behind me. I figured whoever left it would come back for it. About ten minutes later, the phone started to ring. Before I had a chance to answer it, Rutgers assistant Fred Hill walked up the steps to claim it. He had to borrow someone else's phone to call his own so he could remember where he lost it. Now that's ingenuity.

3) The most dedicated cell-phone user was the guy who gabbed on his phone while, uh, sitting inside the bathroom stall on Thursday afternoon. Sorry I can't tell you who it was. There are some stories this reporter simply won't chase down.