Similarly, just because Floyd made the same offer last year to then-14-year-old Dwayne Polee Jr., doesn’t mean the 6-6 high school freshman from Westchester, Calif., still isn’t on other schools’ list. Or that Boatright, who was reportedly being chased by DePaul, Indiana and a handful of other schools, will be at USC until he actually signs a national letter of intent.

“Four years is a long time,” Pitino said, “and way too often, it just doesn’t work out for either side.

“Unless he’s Greg Oden, where you know he’s going to be that good down the road, I’m not sure what’s in it for the school. For the kid, on the other hand, it could be great — unless the school backs out.”

And no coach wants his feet held to the fire. Pitino recalled a ninth-grader who committed to Louisville, but wasn’t a good fit by the time his freshman year of college rolled around. He recalled a similar case where Florida coach Billy Donovan, his one-time pupil, had to convince another kid that he’d found three players at the same position in the interim.

“The only thing it’s guaranteed to do,” Pitino said about the signing, “is generate a lot of publicity.”

Try telling that to all those parents already in debt up to their eyeballs. With dollar signs in their eyes and college scholarships supposedly being handed out at summer camps like consolation prizes, it’s only going to get more expensive still. This is called free enterprise.

Developing athletic talent is not only cheaper, but a whole lot less chaotic when it’s run by the government, or by powerful clubs, such as the soccer teams in Europe. There, talents are identified even earlier than 14, catalogued, sent to academies, signed, trained and delivered to pros a few years later at fixed costs.

When high school prospects were skipping college and pouring straight into the NBA with all the attendant problems, somebody proposed that solution to then-deputy commissioner Russ Granik. He chuckled, thought it over, then pointed out that was never going to be an option.

“It sounds great,” he said, “but there’s no chance people in this country would ever go for that.”

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