Before he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and courting agents as a senior in high school, Ohio State had an "in" with LeBron James. Now, this was way back when James was a little-known freshman. But the plan, as silly as it seems now, was to get James to sign a national letter of intent to play basketball for the Buckeyes.

The Buckeyes were all over James, as much as a school could be while recruiting in-state, 15-year-olds. They sent him mail when they were supposed to, made the calls when they were allowed to, but more than anything, they were close enough for James to come see the Buckeyes play.

	Ivan Harris stayed close to home by signing with Ohio State ...

And it wasn't just James. Ivan Harris, he of Springfield, Ohio, was also on Ohio State's radar. And in a perfect Buckeye word, the pair would sign with Ohio State during the fall of 2002 when they were seniors.

Well, the Buckeyes got a commitment and signature on a national letter of intent from Harris last week. As for James? Well, he lists Ohio State as one of his five schools, but only a fool still thinks he'll be in college, rather than the NBA next season.

But the fact remains, Ohio State initially had a chance to pull off an in-state coup with both players. And it shouldn't come as a surprise. The Buckeyes got one of the two, just like Mississippi State got the commitments from its two best players in the state (Jackie Butler committed and Travis Outlaw signed); Wisconsin from its top player (Brian Butch); and Cal from the best in the state (Leon Powe).

The trend to stay home is catching on with high school phenoms. The trend, however, begins with players taking advantage of unofficial visits, getting to know the staff and the school on your own terms rather than the NCAAs of one visit late in the junior season, or the one call a week in the months beyond.

While Arizona, Duke, Kansas and Oklahoma filled their classes out of state with some of the top talent, nearly half of the top talent stayed home. Ten of the top 25 signed with a school in state, and only two of the top 25 aren't committed -- James and Brandon Bass of Baton Rouge, La. Bass could still end up at LSU, and even the committed James Lang of Birmingham isn't a lock for Louisville because he could choose to go to the draft. The other committed player who didn't sign during the week-long, early-signing period that concluded Wednesday, is Charlie Villanueva of Blair Academy (N.J.). He committed but didn't sign with Illinois, because he's still waiting to see where he would be in the NBA draft.

"It's becoming harder to go into someone's state and get their kids," Ohio State coach Jim O'Brien said. "It's very important to get the best players in the state. When we first got here, Michigan State got Andre Hutson, A.J. Granger, Doug Davis and Adam Wolfe from the state. Now they recruited Ivan hard, but we got him. The toughest competition for us in the state is usually Cincinnati and Xavier."

Again, a lot of what sways a potential recruit's decision-making process, has to do with access.

	... so did 7-foot Brian Butch, who inked with Wisconsin.

O'Brien said a number of coaches are encouraging the underclassmen to make a lot of visits on their own. They want them to come to practice, a football game, or basketball game, and get as familiar with the campus much as they can under the rules. If the player is local, he can drive down and come around as much as he wants, as long as it's not during a dead recruiting period.

"You get a relationship that way that you can't have with a player who is further away," O'Brien said. "Ivan was up here a load of times. He'd walk into the arena and people would know him. He was only 45 minutes away."

Leon Powe, a top talent out of California, came to games at Cal from his freshman year on at Oakland Tech -- in the Bears' backyard. The only way Powe's presence on campus was going to backfire on Cal coach Ben Braun was if there was a poor relationship.

"We have the word 'California' on our uniform, so we have to continue to get the local talent. But we can't only recruit California," Braun said.

That's obvious. Programs can't rely strictly in-state to survive. Mississippi State just happened to get a year when two of the best players in the country were from Mississippi.

"It's an advantage, but there are still five other SEC schools within a three-hour radius of any kid in Mississippi," Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury said. "When we got Erick Dampier to stay home, it showed that you could have a local kid stay here and go to the Final Four (in 1996). But we're not going to take a kid if he doesn't fit.

"The best player in the state, isn't always best for your program. There weren't point guards here this year, so that's why we went out of state (to New York to get Gary Ervin). But most of the kids in Mississippi are going to be us and somebody else recruiting them."

Getting a local kid isn't the only answer, but it can ease any pain on alumni if the player is good enough to play at your school and you lock him up. That's why Wake Forest almost had to get Chris Paul of nearby Clemons, N.C. Three of the four players Wake signed are from North Carolina.

"It's not a must, but it helps," Wake Forest coach Skip Prosser said. "You can't be afraid to recruit against the big in-state school, either. We weren't at Xavier. But we have something different here because we're a small, private school in the middle of the best conference in the country."

But Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan wants to make it clear that 7-foot Brian Butch of Appleton, Wis., didn't choose Wisconsin just because he wanted to stay home. Ryan says Butch chose Wisconsin because of the program, not just the proximity.

"Everybody keeps saying that it's great that he stayed home, but wait a second," Ryan said. "He lives in Wisconsin and he felt good about our program. He didn't just choose us because we're near his home. We saw him as a type of player we'd love to have because he dove on the floor the first time we saw him and you don't see that from big men all the time."

And if Butch didn't choose Wisconsin and went to, say, North Carolina? The Badgers would have heard about it through fan message boards, but that doesn't mean they would be toast in competing for the Big Ten title.

The same is true down in the Bayou where Bass is deciding among LSU, Connecticut and Mississippi State. If LSU coach John Brady doesn't land Bass, it won't be because he didn't try to keep one of the top local players in the state (Lisbon's small forward Vakeaton Wafer chose Florida State).

"We've gotten the local kid like Stromile Swift and sometimes you're going to miss," Brady said. "We got Tack Minor out of Houston, does that mean that's bad for Texas? No. It's overblown a bit. It's not where they're from, but are they good enough.

"If they're all leaving Louisiana and, specifically Baton Rouge, then that's one thing. Chris Duhon left Louisiana for Duke, but Stromile stayed here. I wish I could get them all but you don't."

But one out of two ain't bad. Just ask the Buckeyes.

	Billy Edelin's punishment seems a little extreme, but other suspended players only have themselves to blame.

Suspended players know better
Syracuse's Billy Edelin is the exception. Getting dinged for 12 games for playing in an unsanctioned men's league during the 2001-02 school year when he wasn't a Syracuse student doesn't make any sense.

The rest of the players getting suspended only have themselves and their college's athletic staffs to blame.

The rule governing college basketball players is pretty simple, and while it's hard to agree with it in principle, it's still a rule. Play in an unsanctioned summer league and the player is going to end up sitting games. Players know it. Coaches know it. That's why it shouldn't come as a shock when the players are sitting at the beginning of the season. Players like Kentucky's Erik Daniels, Georgia's Chris Daniels, and Illinois' Brian Cook and Jerrance Howard, don't have an excuse.

The NCAA made only one exception, and that was for North Carolina's Will Johnson and Jonathan Holmes, who played in a 3-on-3 tourney, benefiting cancer research.

"We went over the rules with our guys, we laid it out there," Illinois coach Bill Self said. "But Brian wasn't there. He was at Nike camp at the time we told everyone in July. They said there was a tournament in Peoria. We said we would check on it, but we didn't say, 'Don't do it.'

"It was bad communication. It's tough to penalize these guys for playing basketball. "We say you shouldn't do it, but if there is a tournament where they're scoring and keeping time, it's hard for me to believe that kids aren't playing in these things all over the country. The reason they don't get reported is not all of them are in the paper. This is a tough rule to enforce. But you could argue that the kids have to use better judgment."

The number of suspensions in 2002 should serve as a wakeup call for next summer, or else the same thing could occur at the beginning of next season.

As for Austin ...
Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury is working with two game plans in lieu of Mario Austin's ongoing eligibility issues.

Plan A: Austin's eligibility is cleared up, he returns to the SEC defending champs by the end of the month, and the Bulldogs have their best inside scorer while they get ready for their title defense.

Plan B: Austin remains on the bench through a light early non-conference schedule. And, without the 16.1 points and 7.6 rebounds he provided last season, MSU must get a sudden surge from junior Lincoln Smith (2.3 ppg) and 7-foot sophomore Marcus Campbell (2.8 ppg).

McNeese State, Jacksonville, Alabama A&M, Jackson State and Louisiana Tech shouldn't pose much problems for the Bulldogs, who'll become a perimeter-oriented team that might seem more predictable. But Xavier (Dec. 14) at Madison Square Garden will be a tough night without Austin to go up against David West down low.

The Bulldogs are a top 15 team with Austin. And Austin's eligibility questions are absurd on the surface with his initial eligibility being called into question two years after he was certified. Sources say he's not being held out because of any questions over whether he signed with an agent or if he was eligible, even though he missed three full weeks of school when he left campus (taking all his belongings) and planned on entering the NBA draft last April. He returned and, apparently, had to make up the work to remain eligible.

The NCAA puts a school like Mississippi State in a bad position because the NCAA isn't technically suspending him. Instead, the school is holding him out of games as a precautionary measure. The school isn't saying if he's practicing right now, either. But if the Bulldogs play him, and the NCAA rules that he is in fact ineligible, then they can be subject to forfeiting games.

If Austin's situation drags on too long, don't be surprised if the school pushes to play Austin and take its chances. The Bulldogs don't want to get hung up in a legal battle over his eligibility while the season starts to get away from them. Mississippi State can get through the non-conference without Austin, save a game against Xavier and Oklahoma in New Orleans, but the Bulldogs can't expect to stay with Alabama and LSU without Austin in the SEC West.

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