How Young Is Too Young?

It's no secret that college basketball is big business. When college coaches are signing multi-million dollar deals, the stakes are high. Winning is the name of the game and we all know that you can't win without top talent. Therefore, much emphasis is placed on recruiting. Programs are in constant competition with one another to sign the cream of the crop. My question is this: How young is too young when it comes to recruiting players? This past summer, an eighth grader, Ryan Boatright (5'9 PG-East Aurora (Illinois) verbally committed to the USC Trojans. Is it just me or does an eighth grader verbally commiting to play for a school sound kind of crazy? TIME magazine published an article on this.