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The Bay Citizen

Local Basketball Stars Shun Bay Area Colleges

Brandon Ashley grew up in the Bay Area and received his first basketball scholarship offer when he was in the ninth grade.Credit...Isaac Brekken for the Bay Citizen

Brandon Ashley is 17, 6-foot-8 and one of the most sought-after prep basketball stars in the country.

Ashley, who played at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland last year, received his first scholarship offer, from San Jose State, when he was a ninth grader. Cal and Stanford wooed him intensely. But when Ashley whittled his list of potential colleges to seven this month, not a single one of the Bay Area’s six N.C.A.A. Division I programs made the cut.

Ashley heads what many scouts and observers say is the strongest Bay Area recruiting crop in years. The flourishing local talent has turned the region into a high-stakes battleground for recruiters. And yet, to the distress of many local fans, Bay Area teams are increasingly left out in the cold, beaten out by schools with bigger budgets and more national exposure.

Bay Area coaches “are putting the time in, but it’s almost like the game changes when the bigger programs come calling,” said Mark Olivier, director of the Oakland Soldiers, a powerhouse A.A.U. team that features several top recruits, including Ashley. Olivier said he received about 50 calls a day from recruiters.

The University of Arizona is one of several national powers now big-footing Bay Area schools.

Last March, the Arizona Wildcats came within a game of the Final Four. Shortly after, the team’s head coach, Sean Miller, arrived in San Francisco, where he predicted “an absolute war” over Bay Area talent. Miller was seeking to replenish a roster that lost forward Derrick Williams, the second overall pick in this year’s N.B.A. draft.

“If you gave me one area of the country to be successful recruiting the next two years, the area that I would pick is this one right here,” Miller told a group of Arizona fans during a May 19 speech at the Olympic Club in San Francisco.

Miller has already signed two Oakland Soldiers players: guards Josiah Turner and Nick Johnson, who committed to Arizona last year. Ashley, ranked by ESPN as the No. 6 recruit in the country, has Arizona on his short list, along with U.C.L.A., Kentucky, Oregon, Texas, Syracuse and Georgia Tech.

“Let’s say Cal or Stanford finished last year like Arizona did,” Olivier said. “I guarantee that would probably make it easier to recruit.”

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Ashley playing for the Oakland Soldiers in the Fab 48 basketball tournament in Las Vegas.Credit...Isaac Brekken for the Bay Citizen

A half-dozen highly rated prospects with Bay Area ties went elsewhere last year; Cal lost recruiting battles for four, including De’End Parker, a San Francisco native ranked by one scouting service as the No. 4 junior college prospect in the country. Parker, who played at City College of San Francisco, committed to Cal but then changed his mind and signed with U.C.L.A.

Last week, Dominic Artis, a point guard from Vallejo who is one of the fastest-rising recruits in the country, announced he had also chosen U.C.L.A. over Cal.

According to Coach Mike Montgomery of the Bears, “The fact is that Cal is a very strong school academically, but for some kids that’s not a priority. They’ll give you lip service, but at the end of the day, they’re not going to come.”

Not long ago, Cal and Stanford built successful teams around local recruits. In the 1990s, Cal landed Jason Kidd of Oakland, who led St. Joseph Notre Dame High in Alameda to two state championships, and Lamond Murray, who went to John F. Kennedy in Fremont. Both were Top 10 N.B.A. picks.

In 2003, when the region had its last big talent surge, Cal signed three highly rated Bay Area recruits, including the future N.B.A. player Leon Powe out of Oakland.

Montgomery knows firsthand that winning can quickly change how recruits perceive a school. As Stanford’s coach in 1998, he led the Cardinal to the Final Four. He said top prospects soon began mentioning Stanford as an ideal college destination. Montgomery took Stanford to the N.C.A.A. regional finals in 2001. The Cardinal spent four weeks as the No. 1 ranked team in the country during the 2003-4 season, when Stanford went 30-2 in Montgomery’s final season.

But Stanford has not had a high-profile local recruit in more than a decade. Coaches and scouts said they detect some fundamental changes that made it more difficult for Bay Area schools to recruit. Montgomery pointed to a modern basketball culture in which prospects increasingly view college as a steppingstone to the N.B.A.

Montgomery said local schools can deal with that issue. “You can present the notion that if you’re going to be a pro, the N.B.A. will find you,” he said.

But Olivier, the director of the Oakland Soldiers, said players are primarily interested in schools that will give them as much exposure as possible. “The biggest thing in all this,” he said, “is television: how many times they’re going to be on and who’s going to be watching.”

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Above right, Coach Rick Barnes, center, of Texas watched the Soldiers compete.Credit...Isaac Brekken for the Bay Citizen

Many observers of college hoops say retaining elite local players is important in building a program. “Cal’s still gotten some pretty good players, but it has to be tough to see those guys going out of the area,” said Evan Daniels, a recruiting analyst for Scout.com.

Ashley is an example of how difficult it can be for teams like Cal and Stanford.

With lightning spin moves, strength and 18-foot range on his jump shot, Ashley is already featured on highlight videos that have circulated throughout the country. The stakes to sign a player of his caliber grow higher each year, with colleges, scouting services and companies investing millions to showcase and evaluate top prospects.

During a five-week stretch this summer, Ashley, sometimes playing with the Nike-sponsored Soldiers, shuttled between the Bay Area and camps and tournaments in Virginia, Chicago, Ohio, South Carolina, and Las Vegas. In an interview shortly before he narrowed his list of suitors, he said he was conscious of how much it would mean for a Bay Area school to sign him, but he signaled that other factors were involved.

“It would be huge for a Bay player to come into a Bay college and lead them to success,” he said. “But it comes down to players’ really wanting to come to the school where they can win and that’s going to help them the most.”

In fact, Ashley will not be around to finish even his high school career. Along with Artis, he is transferring to play his senior year at Findlay Prep, a basketball factory near Las Vegas whose elite players live together and attend classes at an affiliated school.

With this year’s best recruits headed elsewhere, attention is shifting to the Bay Area class a year below Ashley’s.

The class of 2013 includes Aaron Gordon, a 6-foot-7 forward at Archbishop Mitty High in San Jose; Jabari Bird, a 6-foot-6 guard at Salesian High in Richmond; and Stephen Domingo, a 6-foot-6 forward at St. Ignatius High in San Francisco. Gordon, Bird and Domingo are currently ranked 9th, 11th and 57th among 2013 recruits by ESPN.

As the war over Bay Area recruits rages, Montgomery is confident he will find players to match his program. “I’m just trying to get kids that want to play good basketball, and Cal is a great school,” he said. “That will always appeal to certain kids.”

But not all. “It’s something that’s from the beginning of time,” Olivier said. “If you’re getting recruited by Cal, and then by Kentucky, you’re feeling good about Kentucky. It’s like the big eating the small.”

sam_laird@msn.com

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page NaN of the National edition with the headline: Local Basketball Stars Shun Bay Area Colleges. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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