This entry was written by Greg Johnson, the Associate Director of The NCAA News and Champion magazine.

Last month a 14-year-old hockey player, who had yet to attend a high school class, verbally committed to play hockey at a Division I program.

Earlier this summer, the most outstanding player of the NCAA men's volleyball championship announced he was forgoing his final year of eligibility to play professionally in South Korea.

To say these stories failed to create a ripple on the national sports scene would be a massive understatement. Yet, when similar scenarios occur in men's basketball, it is big news.

Why is that?

Does it run deeper than revenue vs. nonrevenue generating sports?

Obviously, men's basketball carries a higher profile, but the scrutiny has a "sky-is-falling" tone whenever a middle school kid makes a verbal commitment or a college player decides to leave early for the draft. We tend to lose perspective on these occasions.

Making a nonbinding verbal commitment or deciding to turn professional in a sport is up to the individual. We all live with the consequences of our choices.

The fact is an infinitesimal number of individuals make these decisions. But basketball, not other sports, seems to always grab the headlines or crawl across the ticker.

The National Association of Basketball Coaches asked its membership to not accept verbal commitments from prospects before their sophomore year of high school. This is commendable stance on the issue, but the NABC can only suggest that members of their group follow this advice.

Certainly if it isn't a good idea for a 14-year-old basketball prospect to make a verbal commitment to an institution, the same should go for a hockey prospect of the same age.

No one can say for sure what a prospect's academic performance will be over the four years of high school or how the prospect's athletic skills will develop over that time.

As for those who have the opportunity to turn professional before exhausting their eligibility, more power to them. Everyone has the right to earn a living.

Still, the number of people in position to make these choices is small compared to entire endeavor.

So the next time one of these scenarios occurs, let's try to look at the big picture.