MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - It must be some kind of experience for a high school basketball player to come to a major university’s summer camp and play in front of top college coaches. As far as West Virginia’s staff is concerned, however, last weekend’s Elite Camp was as beneficial to them as it was the prospects in attendance.

“I think the biggest thing it does is it exposes them to the university and we get some face time,” says Bob Huggins. “You can't get with face time with guys because of the rules. You can't get any face time with them until September of their senior year.”

Now, more than ever, that time to meet and interact with potential recruits is becoming extremely precious to college programs. With the way recruiting services highlight and promote talent these days, it is less likely that a player flies under the radar and avoids being noticed at a young age.

“Kids are committing earlier and earlier so it's important to get some face time with them. It's so much easy to talk to somebody if you know them,” says Huggins.

WVU assistant Eric Martin says one of the problems that gets solved with such a camp is that staffs as a whole are not generally aware of all the players their coaches are recruiting. Martin could be high on small forward who the rest of the staff has never laid eyes on, while Larry Harrison and Billy Hahn are each focused on a completely different set of players.

“As a staff, you talk to each other, you communicate, but you’re recruiting your own players and you’re so into your own players that maybe you’re not paying attention to who Billy [Hahn] is recruiting or Larry [Harrison] is recruiting or myself,” says Martin. “Some of these guys who I’ve heard about, I’m finally getting a chance to see for the first time.”

So who was on hand for the camp? Well, as a rule, the coaches are not allowed to discuss individual prospects, but Martin did say the court was not as full of “big-name” players as they’ve had in years past. It’s safe to say Adreian Payne set the bar high a year ago in Morgantown.

This is not to say there weren’t terrific athletes in Coliseum, though.

“If you go by recruiting services, you could say he’s a big name or he’s not a big name,” Martin explains. “We had guys we are recruiting, and that’s really all you can ask for. Would you like to have guys who are going to be McDonald’s All-Americans? Yeah, but there are so many other things going on, guys have commitments, so you invite the kid you’re recruiting, but the majority of them have something else going on, so you invite someone else.”

Then those players get teamed up with each other and face off in a number of games coached by current players on the WVU basketball team. So you have Coach Mazzulla’s team facing off against Coach Jennings and so on. Martin got a kick out of seeing his pupils try their hand at his profession, even if it were just for one day.

“It was great. I was watching Dan Jennings coach and his team was winning and he said, ‘Oh man, coaching is great.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, while you’re winning,’” says Martin. “Then his team ended up getting behind and he said ‘Man, coaching is crazy.’ And I told him, ‘That’s what we go through with you. Imagine what we go through for six months.’”

After a few hours barking orders from the sidelines, the student-coaches were likely eager to get back to being student-athletes. Still, Martin knows that he was one of those student-athletes years ago playing under Huggins at Cincinnati, and an experience like what his players got this weekend could have helped guide him to coaching at a much earlier age.

“Who knows, some of these kids some day might want to be coaches,” says Martin. “This gives them a chance to see how to talk to their players, so it’s a learning experience for everyone involved, including our own kids.”

If the Mountaineers staff gets their way, some of the high schoolers who took the court on Saturday and Sunday will be back for a few more Elite Camps in a coaching role these coming years.