Hewitt on recruiting 6th graders and McD's AA Preview

When is young too young to rank? Evidently never, at least if you work for HoopScoop.com or Rivals.com or Scout.com - even ranking players still in elementary school. This article in the Greensboro News-Record includes an interesting quote by Hewitt regarding this growing phenomenom.

Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt subscribes to HoopScoop and similar online recruiting services. He said he uses them to help evaluate high school players -- not middle school kids. "Pretty comical, isn't it?" he said, when asked about ranking children.

Hewitt said he doesn't waste his time "looking for the next great sixth-grader."

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, my younger sister is a pretty highly thought of volleyball player with the ability to play for a large conference division 1 school - and I can't imagine if she'd been looking at national rankings since she was 10 years old. Heck, she still doesn't even really know where Auburn is, and she's a junior in high school. Thankfully volleyball is far lower profile than basketball, and her parents have done a terrific job shielding her from as much as possible - but how on earth do you live a normal teenage life? Is it a wonder so many basketball phenoms end up broken and disfunctional? Kids aren't ready for this, they shouldn't be pressured and exposed like this - and yet it's huge business and thus parents, AAU coaches and these recruiting services are just feeding the internet driven thirst for information about these kids barely old enough to need Clearsil. It's ugly, and unfortunate.

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In other news today, Andrew Skwara from Rivals.com penned a piece for The Sporting News about the projected McDonald's All-Star game invitees - which is of great interest to GT fans this year because two of the '06 Jacket recruits look to be likely candidates. He has Thaddeus Young as a "lock" and Javaris Crittenton as "likely". It's a political event moreso than even a basketball game anymore, but it will be fun to watch two future Jackets on the court together if it works out.