National Harbor, Md. — They may be two years away from starting high school, but seventh-grade basketball players are now officially on the NCAA’s radar.
Under a new recruiting rule adopted this week, male basketball players in the seventh and eighth grades are now defined as prospective athletes, a move designed to prevent overeager college coaches from recruiting them.
NCAA rules previously defined a prospective basketball athlete as any student who had begun classes for the ninth grade. But in the intensely competitive world of Division I basketball recruiting, some coaches work in their off season at elite, privately run camps and clinics for seventh- and eighth-grade players to gain early access to talented young athletes.
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