Dwayne Polee Jr. is making a big mistake. The 14-year-old high
school freshman verbally committed to USC’s basketball team
earlier this week, and was reportedly offered a scholarship by USC
coach Tim Floyd. Polee has yet to play a game for Westchester High,
as the high school basketball season hasn’t started, yet
Polee has already committed to a college team. Committing before
your freshman high school season is way too early and is a mistake.
A lot can change in four years. Not just with Polee, but with USC
and other schools he could be interested in. If Polee becomes one
of the best high school players in the nation, he could be tempted
to look at college basketball’s top programs, or even at the
NBA. A lot can happen to the team he wants to join as well. USC
could conceivably see enough success over the next few years for
coach Tim Floyd to be hired back into the NBA or lured to another
top college program. USC could also see a few bad years, making the
program undesirable. There’s also the possibility USC could
add a bunch of other talented players at Polee’s position
(he’s listed as a 6-foot-6 guard), limiting the amount of
playing time he would get. Or maybe another team, like Duke or
UCLA, will pull off an unprecedented streak of championship after
championship and want Polee to be a part of their team. Too much
can change between now and 2010, when Polee will enter college. And
no, Trojan fans, this isn’t a UCLA-USC thing. I said the same
thing when Taylor King committed to UCLA back in 2003, before he
started high school. It turns out I was right. King changed his
mind and committed to Duke earlier this year. King was put in the
national spotlight for his early commitment, just like Polee. And
even though UCLA has seen a lot of success since King committed, he
still changed his mind. As King grew older, he decided to give
other schools a chance, and obviously saw what he liked at Duke.
Maybe Polee will do the same thing. For his sake, I hope he thinks
his decision through and is sure he wants to go to USC. Because if
he’s not happy four years from now, he’ll regret not
giving other schools a chance. Ңbull;Ӣbull;Ӣbull;
The first Bowl Championship Series standings of the season were
released this week. And for the first time in years, there were no
significant changes to the BCS formula between last year and this
year. A rare season in which only two major schools finish unbeaten
and everyone is happy with the championship game will do that. Just
like a year ago, the standings are calculated by taking a
team’s percentage of total points in three parts ““ the
coaches’ poll, the Harris poll and a sum of different
computer rankings. And for those of you who are new to college
football, the BCS standings are used to determine which two teams
play in the championship game. Looking at the BCS standings, two
teams jumped out at me. USC was overwhelmingly ranked No. 1 in the
computer rankings, while the coaches’ and the Harris polls
have the Trojans at No. 3 and No. 2, respectively. Overall, USC is
No. 2 in the BCS standings. It’s hard for me to say this, but
USC really does deserve that No. 1 ranking. USC hasn’t played
any mid-major doormats, as every other unbeaten team has done. I
know Ohio State has beaten Texas and Michigan has beaten Notre
Dame, but USC’s overall schedule is much superior to the
other unbeatens. A schedule filled with great and average teams is
stronger than a schedule with one elite team, some average teams
and some horrible teams. West Virginia is ranked very highly by the
human voters ““ it’s fourth in both polls. Yet the
Mountaineers are 14th in the computer rankings, moving them down to
fifth in the BCS standings. The only team with a winning record
that West Virginia has beaten is Maryland, who sits in last place
in the ACC’s Atlantic Division. As maligned as they are, the
computer rankings do point out the human voters’ flaws every
once in a while.
E-mail Quiñonez at gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.