There was a time when I was a serious recruiting writer.

It was very different back in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, when I followed the subject closely. We didn’t have the modern AAU circuit or such events as the Peach Jam or the EYBL. But college coaches could talk about recruiting in that era – and they did. I would be tipped off as to which recruits to follow and I would talk to their prep coaches, who usually managed their recruitment. I talked frequently to Howard Garfinkel, who was the clearcut recruiting guru in his day.

I thought about how the world has changed when I traveled to Charlottesville, Va., last week for the NBA Top 100 – a camp for many of the nation’s top prospects. One of the first people I saw at John Paul Jones Arena was John Lucas, who is now an assistant coach for the Houston Rockets.

Back in the 1971-72 season, I was a young sports writer at the Durham Herald. My friend Chuck Lewis and I were the low men on the staff. The Herald didn’t cover prep basketball at that time (we’d pay kids to call in the scores), but Chuck and I were basketball fanatics and we would take our “lunch hours” to drive over to Hillside High and watch John Lucas play for the Hornets.

He was a phenomenon – so popular that Hillside moved its games to nearby North Carolina Central to accommodate the crowds.

Chuck and I wanted to do a major story on Lucas – the best Durham prep basketball player since Bones McKinney captivated the city in the days before World War II. But sports editor Elton Casey was very skeptical. Casey was very close to UNC coach Dean Smith, so he asked Smith about Lucas. According to Casey, Smith said that Lucas was a good player, but not as good as he thought he was. Smith told Casey that Lucas should go to Elon or High Point, where he could be a big fish in a little pond.

Instead, Lucas went to Maryland, where he was three times first-team All-ACC and twice a consensus first-team All-American. In 1976, Lucas was the first player taken in the NBA draft.

I talked to Lucas last week in Charlottesville and he told me a great story about Dean Smith’s lukewarm recruiting effort. I had forgotten that Lucas’ class was the first to take advantage of the NCAA new rule allowing freshman eligibility.

“Dean didn’t think a freshman should start,” Lucas told me. “When he recruited me, he told me that George Karl was his starting point guard and that I would come off the bench.”

Lucas started from Day One at Maryland and became the nation’s first freshman phenom. On Super Bowl Sunday in January of 1973, he starred on national television (rare in those days) in a historic game with N.C. State that David Thompson won with a follow shot at the buzzer.

But Smith – and John Wooden, who also scouted and passed on Lucas – can be forgiven for missing out on Lucas’ greatness. They never got to see Lucas in an all-star setting, playing against the best players in his prep class.

“North Carolina had a rule back then – you couldn’t play in any non-approved events,” he said. “No AAU ball, no camps, no all-star games. You play in one and you lose your eligibility.”

Today’s kids get far more exposure.

And even now, it’s very difficult to measure talent.

I kept that in mind as I watched the 100 or so players on display in Charlottesville. It’s easy to be seduced by one bad game – or over-impressed by one or two strong games. But it doesn’t take too long to measure athletic ability, although physical skills are never in short supply.

My friend Mark Watson told me that in past years, the field at the NBA Top 100 was unsurpassed. It would really be the best 100 kids from the rising junior and rising senior classes.

Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts robbed the event of most of the top 2018 prospects. The 2019 field was still very strong, but many kids at that level are still developing their game.

My focus these days is primarily on Duke and the ACC, so with that in mind, here are a few comments about what I saw in Charlottesville:

2018 prospects

Duke’s top targets – Cameron Reddish, Tre Jones, Darius Garland and Marvin Bagley were at other camps. Zion Williamson was listed as an early attendee, but became instead a late scratch. Still, there were at least three potential Duke recruits in hand:

-- David McCormack: I was surprised when I saw the 6-10 center playing for the first time. I had seen pictures of him and, frankly, he looked more like BeeJay Anya than Kennedy Meeks (to cite two overweight ACC big men). He was listed at 295 pounds.

But the McCormack I saw was a fit, very muscular big man. He was listed on the camp roster at 279 pounds, but he told me that he was closer to 265 at the moment.

“I’ve lost 40 pounds from my top weight,” he said.

McCormick runs the court well and has a nice set of hands. He doesn’t appear to have a well-developed offensive game, but unlike to so many young big men, who like to float outside, he is contend to stay down low and do the dirty work inside. He’s not especially skilled, but he’s a strong big man who rebounds and defends.

His ability to manage his weight is going to be critical to his college career. Anya, a very talented big man, ate himself out of the N.C. State rotation. Meeks battled weight for most of his career at UNC, but got it under control his senior year and was able to play a key role on UNC’s title team.

McCormack is a player Duke – expecting to lose Marques Bolden and Wendell Carter after this season – wants very badly. There are not a lot of quality big men in this class, which is one reason that McCormack is in such demand.

He was planning an unofficial visit to Duke this past weekend and he’ll follow that with a visit to N.C. State. He’s already visited Virginia a couple of times. His AAU coach was recently hired by Oklahoma State. And he definitely plans to talk to Pat Ewing about Georgetown.

McCormack said that he has no list yet and no timetable to make a decision.

Duke’s chances appear to be pretty good, but far from a lock.

-- Cole Swider: The slender, 6-8, shooter ended up the No. 3 scorer at the camp, despite missing most of one game with a minor ankle injury.

He was a spectacular 3-point shooter – he hit 5 of 7 3s in the two games I watched. He has a beautiful form on his shot. He launches it high and quick.

Swider is also a fairly good athlete. He runs the floor very well. I think he needs to work on his handle and his strength – in the two games I saw, he was remarkably ineffective as a rebounder.

Last spring, Coach K burned Jim Boeheim badly when he stole Syracuse target Jordan Tucker at the last moment. It could happen again – Boeheim has invested a lot of time and effort into Swider, but most observers think Duke is a strong leader for his services.

Nothing is certain in recruiting, but Swider is very likely to be the first player to commit to Duke’s Class of 2018.

-- Simisola Shittu: Forget the immature reaction to his last name – this 6-10 Canadian is a player. Shittu lead the Top 100 camp in both scoring and rebounding.

His game is hard to describe. Shittu is an incredible athlete, combining speed, strength and jumping ability. He is a defensive beast – able to guard all five positions. He also plays with an incredible motor. I think he probably had more garbage baskets than everybody else in Charlottesville put together.

His skill set is not as impressive as his athletic ability, but those who have followed him for a while tell me that Shittu has made a lot of progress in the last year. He still needs to improve his shooting.

He’s a prime prospect who has heard from almost every top program in the country. Duke has touched base, but Louisville and Oregon have offered and are pushing hard. Notre Dame is another strong contender.

Those are the only 2018 prospects that have been connected to Duke (and Shittu is a longshot), but a couple of more potential ACC players were on display.

Coby White, a 6-5 guard from Wilson, NC, has committed to UNC. He represents the danger of making too firm a judgment based on one or two games. The first time I saw him, White was impressive – probably the fastest guy with the basketball in the camp. The next few times I saw him, he was terrible – out of control and totally ineffective.

Devon Dotson, a 6-2 guard from Charlotte, is the exact opposite. He’s a smooth, under-control player who appears to be a born playmaker. Reportedly, he wanted to go to North Carolina, but the Heels don’t have a scholarship for him. Kansas is a strong favorite to land him, but Wake Forest, Miami and Maryland are also in the hunt.

And, I only got to see him play one game before he was hurt, but I loved Darius Bazely, a 6-9 forward from Cincinnati. Louisville and Syracuse are chasing him, but hometown Cincinnati seems to be the team to beat.

The 2019 crop

The timing was interesting – but Wednesday night at midnight was the first moment when college coaches could contact 2019 prospects by phone.

On Thursday, almost every top player in the class was queried about who called him the night before. The lists were so long as to be almost meaningless.

But there were a couple of interesting tidbits.

Matthew Hurt, a 6-8 combo forward from Rochester, Mn, told us that his first call came from Louisville’s Rick Pitino.

“He woke me up at 12:01,” he said.

But somehow Pitino was also the first to call Armando Bacot, a slender 6-10 forward from Richmond.

Hurt and Bacot are two of the 2019 prospects that Duke is interested in. However, it’s early and so far the Blue Devils have not offered anybody in the class.

Then there is Cole Anthony, the 6-2 point guard from Archbishop Malloy High in New York. He is the son of Greg Anthony, the UNLV point guard in 1991, when Duke knocked off the undefeated Rebels in the national title game.

The younger Anthony has a game that looks like his father’s. He’s always calm and in control and he’s a great distributor. I got to see his first game and as I walked back to the press room, I mentioned to another writer how impressed I was with Anthony. The other guy told in in no uncertain terms that Anthony had a terrible game, “he only scored seven points.”

All I can say is that Anthony was a dominant force even when he didn’t shoot well. He would shoot much better for the rest of the tournament. He can take it to the hole and he’s deadly with the mid-range jumper. He is an impressive floor leader.

Anthony said his father will be handling his recruiting. He hasn’t even started trimming his list, but he did mention Duke (among about eight other schools) as one of the teams he was interested in.

Still, a long way to go on that one – maybe a year from now, Anthony will be cutting his lust and focusing on a handful of schools. The same for Hurt and Bacot and most of the 2019 prospects.

Watching the NBA Top 100 camp reminded me of how much good talent is out there. Seeing John Lucas again reminded me of how hard it is to separate the good prospects from the great prospects.