From the first brochure in the mail to the final pitch in the living room and with every phone call in between, college basketball coaches bombard recruits with information.

Playing time (plenty). Facilities (deluxe). Style of play (up-tempo!). Academic support (extensive). Exposure (tons). Preparation for the pros (lottery's calling). Scheduled visits by Dick Vitale (weekly). Where the chicks hang out on campus (wherever you are, Stud).

		Tuesday, April 22 If the NCAA is serious about cleaning up the summer, getting recruiting back in the hands of the high school coach and possibly alleviating the problem of coaches leaving recruits behind when they take a new job then there should be only one signing period, not two. The early signing period each November was created to help ease the burden on the recruits and the coaches. But it has put too much emphasis on the summer. Coaches are making home visits in the spring to juniors, getting them on campus and then following them in their final summer ball tour. Once that is done, they try and sign them in November. Getting to the high school coach isn't a necessity. The majority of the recruiting is done over the summer with that coach, rather than the players' schoolyear coach. That coach, who isn't as reputable as the high school coach, could end up being a deciding factor. And when players sign in November they have no idea if their coach is going to be there in April. If players had only one signing period in late April then they wouldn't have to worry about their coach not being at the school. Of course, there is a chance the recruit could also want out of his letter because the team performed poorly. Waiting until the spring would help with this problem, too. Basketball is unique, but also tiring for the coaches and players because it's a two-semester sport. Making the recruiting period a two-semester event, as well, means it's even more time consuming. Players would be protected more if they waited until the spring. They would have a true picture of the program and whether the coach would be staying for the fall. The NCAA is always complaining that their coaches aren't dealing with the high school coaches enough. If the recruiting period mirrored the academic year, this issue would be moot. The NCAA coaches would have to deal with the high school. One signing period makes more sense and would solve problems for the NCAA.

But there's one piece of vital recruiting information most prospects never hear from the coaches who vow to treat them like family while developing their jumper:

You don't have to sign a national letter of intent.

(OK, actually there's a second piece of vital information left out by coaches. You never hear one say, "I'd love to coach you, Johnny, but if we have a good year and a big-time school comes calling after this season, I'm outta here on the first thing smokin'. I'll forget your name in the time it takes to pack up my office.")

It's true about letters of intent, kids. They're not mandatory. No NCAA rule says you have to sign one. You CAN receive a scholarship without an NLI.

Once upon a time, a hotshot recruit named Tom McMillen went down to the final days prior to his freshman year of college before making a call. He simply showed up at Maryland instead of North Carolina, temporarily breaking Dean Smith's heart. (McMillen went on to become a great collegian, an Olympian, a solid pro and a United States senator. His life was not ruined by failure to sign a letter of intent.)

Simply put, the letter of intent was a wonderful invention from the standpoint of the colleges doing the recruiting, but slightly less wonderful for the players who sign with one coach and are stuck playing for another.

You think David Padgett hasn't second-guessed entering into a binding agreement with Kansas last November, when it looked like Roy Williams would be there forever instead of becoming the new coach at North Carolina?

How about Richard McBride, who signed on the dotted line with Illinois and Bill Self?

Or Chris Taft, who locked in with Pittsburgh when Ben Howland was still the boss?

How nervous is Marquette signee Dameon Mason right now, wondering whether Tom Crean will be there in the fall or be at Illinois?

Pending a highly unlikely release from their erstwhile schools of choice, those four and many other players like them will be entering a college experience radically different from what they envisioned. Either they fight the system, do not honor their letter and risk sitting out up to two years, or they suck it up and go where they originally signed.

Sometimes it works out fine, like with Manhattan transfer Heshimu Evans. He transferred to Kentucky and sat out during Rick Pitino's last year, only to see Pitino leave for the Celtics. But Evans was plugged in immediately by new coach Tubby Smith and became an integral part of the 1998 national championship team.

Sometimes it doesn't, like with Massachusetts center Michael Bradley. He signed with Pitino and also saw him leave for the Celtics before he got there. Bradley was stuck with two unhappy years under Smith, who didn't think Bradley played good enough defense to earn major minutes. Bradley transferred to Villanova, where he played one season before becoming a first-round draft pick.

Given the rate of job-switching going on today in college hoops, given the towering role coaches play in recruiting decisions and given the restrictions on players getting out of an NLI, you wonder why anyone would sign such a thing. You especially wonder why so many rush to sign in the early period -- in November of a player's senior year -- instead of the later month-long period in the spring (currently ongoing).

Because you never know what could happen to your coach in the nine months between signing day and the start of classes in August.

Of course, it's really not that simple. Only the nation's best prospects could afford to stiff-arm the NLI and still be assured that their school of choice would hold a scholarship for them. Most coaches will play hardball if they feel they can, which can make it extremely difficult to delay putting it in writing. Coaches want their guys locked up, and they will issue grave warnings about offering a player's scholarship to someone else if they don't commit early.

And many players are eager to end the recruiting insanity as quickly as possible, so they can be rid of the pressure and enjoy their senior seasons. If you never sign, the recruiting process might never stop (especially since some schools don't always accept verbal commitments as a signal to stop recruiting).

And it's true that the rules many are currently railing against as draconian are in place for good reason. If players did not have to sit out any time after transferring or bailing on a signed letter, we'd have a nation of nomads.

Graduation rates would actually be worse, which is hardly possible. Coaches would be held hostage by malcontent players, in fear that they'd transfer to the Program of the Moment. And coaches would be brazenly taking recruits from their olds school with them to their new jobs, after spending a bunch of their former school's money to sign them in the first place.

So the rules exist as a reasonable deterrent to some predictable excesses. But let me repeat: You don't HAVE to sign something that binds you before you even enroll. And you certainly don't HAVE to sign it early.

Think of the options at Charlie Villanueva's disposal right now, as opposed to, say, Padgett, whose second choice to Kansas was North Carolina. The 6-foot-9 McDonald's All-American from Brooklyn committed to Illinois but never signed a letter. Smart kid, it turned out, given Self's evacuation of Champaign this week.

Villanueva might still end up going pro. His adviser told ESPN.com that's the direction he's headed, but his mother, Dora, denied that report.

"Charlie's going to college," the Spanish-speaking Dora said Monday night through her daughter. "But I don't know which one."

He's one of the few top-flight players with a chance to change his mind right now. Villanueva played the recruiting game just right, instead of having the recruiting game play him.

Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com