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NCAA President Myles Brand criticized the trend of colleges recruiting ever-younger prospects and expressed the hope that such efforts can be curtailed, if not eliminated.
"I find that very unfortunate," Brand said in a telephone interview Monday, "and, indeed, untoward.
"It's nothing we want to be widespread."
By getting a commitment from an eighth-grader earlier this month, Kentucky unwittingly sparked a debate in basketball circles about whether it's proper for colleges to seek commitments from prospects who only recently entered puberty.
UK, which also got a commitment from a ninth-grader this year and two other ninth-graders a year ago, is not alone in recruiting such prospects. And, Brand said, the NCAA had already considered such recruiting a problem.
Brand welcomed the National Association of Basketball Coaches' look into the propriety of its members recruiting middle-schoolers. "Whether it's professional behavior or not," Brand said, before adding, "and that seems appropriate."
The NCAA will not seek to pass legislation to ban such commitments. Instead, Brand said, the NCAA will look to create an atmosphere that inhibits the offering of scholarships to prospects so young. He called for a reform of the "pre-collegiate environment" with the help of such entities as the NBA, high school federations, USA Basketball, the NABC and shoe companies. "Make it less unsavory," he said.
Brand also called upon individual schools and conferences to look into the recruitment of prospects several years away from entering college.
He based his objection on two factors: Schools cannot reliably assess whether such prospects will be admitted academically; a scholarship offer at such a young age can limit a prospect's outlook on life's possibilities.
Last week, Ivy League commissioner Jeff Orleans said that early recruitment works at cross-purposes with the NCAA's continuing effort to strengthen academic standards.
Brand agreed with Orleans.
"I think it takes the emphasis off academic successes of young men in high school and puts it on living up to a certain standard in basketball," Brand said. "And that's all that counts."
During a news conference Saturday, UK Coach Billy Gillispie suggested that an early commitment can help a prospect's academic performance by giving him greater access to college officials, who can alert him to classroom standards that must be achieved.
"It might in some cases," Brand said. "In other cases, perhaps in a majority of cases, just the opposite will happen. What will happen, it essentially tells young men (that) all that counts is basketball.
"And, 'I'm going to be accepted at Kentucky or whatever institution no matter what I do in school.' And that's a bad message to send."
Gillispie questioned whether college presidents who criticized early commitments understood recruiting, how competitive it can be, and how prospects showcase their skills at an ever-younger age.
"I can think of several reasons why a coach might want to undertake this type of recruiting," Brand said. "First of all, it gives them a competitive advantage, or at least it appears to give him a competitive advantage. They want to line up talent as soon as they can.
"Secondly, a coach may not feel comfortable with much of what goes on in third-party recruiting: runners, street agents. I can see from their point of view there may be reasons to do that."
But Brand remains unconvinced that the pluses outweigh the minuses in recruiting middle-school players.
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