Scorecard

Growing Up Too Soon

Over the past decade the year-to-year rhythm of college basketball has been disrupted by the early exodus of many of the game's best young players to the NBA. A record 10 underclassmen were selected in the first round of the June NBA draft; four sophomores and a high school senior were the top five picks. Now it looks as if the All-America college senior will become an even more endangered species. Last week SI asked nine high school seniors, all ranked in the Top 10 nationally by recruiting maven Bob Gibbons, whether they intended to play four years of college ball. Only one said yes. Of the remaining eight, four expect to turn pro after their junior seasons, and the other four said they would probably bolt after two years.

Two of the respondents said they were influenced by the decision of 6'11" Chicago high schooler Kevin Garnett to pass up college altogether after the Minnesota Timberwolves made him the fifth pick overall in this year's draft. "Really, I thought everybody had to go to college for at least one or two years," said 6'9" Tim Thomas of Paterson, N.J. "I never thought about [going pro right away] before Kevin did it. Now I think about it every day." Garnett's choice had the same effect on 6'10" Jermaine O'Neal of Columbia, S.C. "A lot of people say our games are similar," said O'Neal. "You hear something like that, you begin to think about going straight to the NBA."

Likely to accelerate the trend will be the NCAA's implementation of Proposition 16 next year, which will make it more difficult for a player to be eligible to play during his freshman season. Neither O'Neal nor Stephen Jackson, a 6'7" forward from Port Arthur, Texas, who's also contemplating going straight to the pros, has yet to qualify academically, and both said that failing to do so would nudge them closer to attempting the jump to the NBA.

While qualifying isn't a concern for Kobe Bryant, a 6'6" guard from Ardmore, Pa., who carries a 3.0 GPA and scored 1,080 on the SAT, the prospect of so many of his peers lighting out for the pros is. "If I don't feel there's enough room to improve in college, I don't think I'd go," Bryant says. "Plus, I want to play against Michael Jordan before he gets old."

And as Yogi Berra might say, people are starting to get old awfully young.

Thank You, 'Mam

If Sharmon Shah had simply changed his name to Allah, he might have attracted less attention, especially in Southern California, where people are accustomed to acts of general weirdness. But when UCLA's senior tailback became Karim Abdul-Jabbar last month, more than a few eyebrows were raised, including those of a certain 7'2" former Bruin center. "Interesting," said Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a burst of loquaciousness.

The 5'10" Karim wasn't acting out of athletic hubris. A devout follower of Islam, Shah asked his Imam, or spiritual leader, for a Muslim name on the occasion of his 21st birthday. In fact, Karim was initially reluctant to embrace his new handle. "Do you realize that I play for UCLA?" he asked the Imam, who replied that he did indeed. Perhaps adding to Karim's discomfort was one other niggling detail: He has worn the number 33 since his sophomore year.

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