Scott Drew Already Desperate!

[50's PONY]

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/87991 ... ERIGHTS=21

[Stallion]

well I couldn't access the link but I just read that Baylor had the No. 8 rated recruiting class in the country by Hoopscoop.com so I would say things are looking up for the Bears in BB.

[ALEX LIFESON]

Welcome back Stallion, how was your trip?

[Pony_Fan]

Baylor courting more trouble?

By Jeff Caplan

Star-Telegram Staff Writer


Roscoe Biggers' hoop dream is a wandering tale in and out of school from coast to coast.

He's a tough-minded point guard from Harlem who attended five high schools over five years in three states. From Manhattan and Harlem to Durham, N.C. From Durham to Compton, Calif., and back to Durham. His odyssey, steered by basketball promises, is set to stop in Waco this fall, when Biggers intends to become a member of Baylor's recovering men's basketball program.

"This has got to be one of the all-time vagabond stories of a journeyman high schooler," said Bob Gibbons, a longtime national recruiting analyst based in North Carolina. "If I'm Baylor, I wonder how you take a kid with that background."

Biggers might help Baylor's backcourt, but his recruitment by coach Scott Drew raises questions about Drew's commitment to adhere to the academic ideals set forth by school President Robert B. Sloan Jr. after the Patrick Dennehy slaying and the ensuing scandal that forced the resignation of former coach Dave Bliss.

If Biggers arrives on campus, he would be a 22-year-old sophomore. He would enroll at his third college in three years. That's due in large part to his finishing his fifth year of high school as an academic nonqualifier on two counts because he failed to carry a cumulative 2.0 grade-point average and because he lacked required core-course units.

Today, Biggers is 16 summer-school credits from the 67 hours he needs to graduate in August with an associate's degree in business management and computer applications from Globe Institute of Technology, a Manhattan junior college.

He started at Globe last summer and expects to graduate at the end of this summer. However, passing 67 hours in such a short time might signal trouble.

"It would be cause for the NCAA Clearinghouse to review his records very closely just to ensure everything proceeded properly, because it is very unusual," NCAA spokeswoman Kay Hawes said.

If Biggers, who said he had a 2.4 grade-point average entering the spring semester, graduates this summer, he would arrive at Baylor a week late for classes, but as the front-runner to start at point guard.

"We feel that we definitely know that the eyes are upon the type of student-athletes we bring to Baylor, and we want it to be that way," Drew said. "At the same time, our job is to recruit the best available players."

Counter action?

On Feb. 26, Sloan delivered the findings of Baylor's internal investigation into the matters surrounding Dennehy's death and the program run by Bliss. Sloan cited significant similarities between circumstances that led to last summer's scandal and the 1994 academic fraud scandal under former coach Darrel Johnson.

"In both instances, there was significant recruitment of junior college players with questionable academic credentials," Sloan said. "In both instances, fear that the students would not be eligible at Baylor led to scandalous conduct."

He concluded: "Unless we take some action to address known problems, the university community will continue being periodically embarrassed by athletic scandals."

Sloan appointed a task force led by former Baylor football coach Grant Teaff to consider standards for recruitment of athletes. The task force is meeting monthly and is expected to submit a report to Sloan soon. The NCAA recently instituted academic reforms that will punish schools at which athletes don't graduate.

Biggers' travels and academic record seem to run counter to Sloan's well-intentioned statements.

"It raises your eyebrows," said Russ Blake, publisher of jucojunction.com, a junior college recruiting service based in New Jersey. "Division I institutions need to do their homework on a kid to make sure he fits within the confines of their school academically, socially and athletically. Fitting in on the basketball team is only one aspect."

Drew's first recruiting class is made up of three junior-college recruits and two international players. Drew said his hiring in late August made it virtually impossible to recruit many of the highly rated high school prospects because they already had committed.

"We worked extremely [deleted] recruiting and feel very good with what we've been able to sign and accomplish, considering some of the obstacles and hurdles," Drew said. "And, the most important thing is the recruiting pool was not very large by the time we had taken the job."

Baylor athletic director Ian McCaw, who was hired several weeks after Drew, said he trusts Drew's judgment.

"When it comes right down to it, it's a coach's decision," McCaw said. "I have great confidence in his ability to bring young men along and mentor them and guide them in the right direction."

Sloan didn't respond to an interview request for this story.

Restocking the roster

Drew envisioned a recruiting class that would grab headlines and possibly even sneak up on the Big 12 next season. But his dream class dissolved one by one.

Powerful 6-foot-9 forward Juan Diego Tello Palacios strongly considered Baylor, but chose Louisville last month. Cedric Smith, an athletic 6-7 forward, did not make his grades at Tyler Junior College and must return there for a third year and redshirt next season. Tyler coach Mike Marquis said Smith hopes to join Baylor in 2005.

Jihad Mohammad, a 5-11 guard out of San Jacinto College, orally committed to Baylor in December, but reneged when Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins offered a scholarship.

Those losses sent Drew scrambling to fill his roster. Along with Biggers, Baylor signed junior college players Patrick Fields and Kevis Shipman; Mamadou Diene, a skinny 7-footer from Senegal; and 6-2 guard Aaron Bruce from Australia.

Fields, a 6-6 shooting guard out of San Antonio Jay, walked on at Mississippi before transferring to Panola College in Carthage last year.

Fields, who will have three years of eligibility, and Shipman, a 6-foot shooting guard who went to high school at Dallas Lincoln before going to Tyler JC, are regarded as strong perimeter shooters. But neither is thought of as an immediate impact player in the Big 12. However, off-court scouting reports suggest they could be solid fits on the Baylor campus as well as on the court.

"Kevis and Patrick are good kids," said Panola coach Scott Monarch, who earned his master's degree at Baylor. "They are not your junior college knuckleheads."

No test pattern

Biggers' twisting path started in ninth grade at Vanguard High School in Manhattan, a school his father, Roscoe Biggers Sr., liked because it offered an alternative curriculum and small class size. But Vanguard did not field a basketball team, and Biggers transferred to Wadleigh High in Harlem.

He averaged 30.1 points a game as a sophomore, the most in New York City. He said Rutgers coaches visited him during his junior year and that they were ready to offer him a scholarship. But they inquired why he hadn't taken the SAT and about gaps in his core courses.

"Nobody was telling me about no 13 core classes and no SAT," Biggers said. "I didn't know about that until Rutgers offered me a scholarship."

At Wadleigh, Biggers was heating up the court, but not the classroom.

"All my classes at Wadleigh, they said all you need is a 65 to stay eligible," Biggers said. "I was trying to do the best I could, but I really wasn't thinking I would go to college at the time."

After the visit by Rutgers' coaches, Biggers placed more of a focus on college basketball and academic requirements. He said he soon took the PSAT twice, the first time scoring 840, then a 1,020. He said he went on to score 1,160 on the SAT.

But Biggers' story of when and where he took the SAT becomes inconsistent. Initially he said he took the exam while enrolled at Mount Zion Christian Academy in Durham, N.C., during his fifth year of high school.

"I had to go up to Hillsborough [N.C.]," Biggers said. "When you take that thing, it's like national security. I was like, after they got all of my information, I was just waiting for her to say, 'Cavity check.' "

But Mount Zion spokeswoman Sharon Evans said her records indicated that Biggers arrived at Mount Zion with an 1,160 SAT score recorded in May 2001 in New York. She also said Mount Zion students generally do not go to Hillsborough to take the test. Hillsborough is in the neighboring county, just north of Chapel Hill.

When asked to clarify why he first said he took the SAT in North Carolina, Biggers said: "I was going to take it again, but never did. My coach was telling me if I take it again and do bad -- which I wouldn't have -- it is going to be a problem."

Biggers also changed his statement about taking the PSAT twice. He later said he took it once and scored 1,000.

The May 2001 test date was just several months after he left Centennial High in Compton before finishing his fourth year of high school. He started that school year having accepted a scholarship to Mount Zion, a preparatory school known for recruiting high school basketball talent and producing Division I recruits.

But the former Mount Zion coach suddenly set out on his own with a handful of players, including Biggers, to open his own academy, a venture that failed. Biggers became fast friends with another player, Tony Key, who told Biggers he had friends and family in Compton, a community near south central Los Angeles, and was headed there to continue school.

Centennial basketball coach Rod Palmer said Biggers arrived at his school missing a lot of his core courses.

"We got him in some night school and independent study courses," Palmer said. "Roscoe is a bright young man. But when you're moving constantly, it puts you in an unstable position."

Biggers was advancing toward graduating from Centennial in the spring of 2001 when he said a family emergency forced him to go home to New York City.

"My daughter was sick," Biggers said.

Preaching the game

Biggers' past coaches describe him as a talkative floor leader, a pass-first point guard who is unafraid to take control in crunch time. They say that his basketball acumen makes up for average athleticism, but that he is not without flaws.

"He needs better work ethic," Globe coach Ken Wilcox said. "If he does that, he can be an impact player."

Paul Brown, coach of Biggers' summer-league team in New York, said Biggers is known as "The Preacher."

"He led us in prayer and led us on the court and the kids just loved him," Brown said. "He's a nice kid from a tough neighborhood."

Biggers' nonqualifier status out of high school cost him a scholarship to Auburn. He spent less than a half of the fall 2002 semester at Seton Hall and left when coaches could not guarantee him a scholarship. That led him to Globe, where Biggers averaged 10.1 points and 7.8 assists last season.

His recruitment by Baylor has some people pondering whether the basketball program already has lost focus of Sloan's ideals.

"When they released all those kids [Lawrence Roberts, John Lucas and Kenny Taylor] and let them leave, that was [Drew's] team that was released," Gibbons said. "In doing that, Baylor was really saying, 'OK, the most important thing to us is to get our program on the right path and build for the future. The short-term wins, we're willing to sacrifice,' " Gibbons said.

"That's the message, I thought."

[Pony4Life]

16 credits short? If most classes are worth three credits, are we to believe this academic powerhouse is gearing up to take 5-plus classes in a single summer? More power to him - I hope he's gotten whatever issues he might have straightened out. Sounds like a risky signing, though, talent notwithstanding.

[Stallion]

oh that's nothin'-a few years ago during that Southern Assemblies of God correspondence course scandel that swept the country there were a few kids that passed something like 38-41 hours during the summer session to regain eligibility. They've probably closed some of those loopholes as a result of that scandel but it used to rampant across the country. Not to single out UT because it was fairly common, but 10-15 tears ago there was routinely multiple players on the UT football team who would drop out of UT in the spring and regain eligibility at a local community college and then start for UT in the Fall. With the progress toward a degree changes made awhile ago the schools have to find in-house ways to keep players eligible. Hey ALEX "Pseudoname Boy" give me a call and I'll give you the low down on the Elation cruise out of Galveston-it was a blast-I'm still trying to recover.

[Mike Damone]

A few years ago, Dontae Jones of Mississippi State took 33 hours of correspondence courses in the summer so he could transfer in.

I doubt Baylor will allow anything remotely shady to on, though.