It’s way too early to say who will be picked where in the Big East race next season but as each week passes this spring, coaches around the league are breathing a bit easier.

 One week it is DaJuan Blair leaving Pittsburgh. The next brings the news that Hasheem Thabeet is departing Connecticut a year early. Then Syracuse loses Jonny Flynn two years early. It’s all bad news for those schools and all better news for the rest of the conference.

 “As part of the Big East you think of top players and this season we saw our share of professional players,” said Providence coach Keno Davis. “As some of these guys leave, it becomes clear that you may see guys just as talented but clearly not as experienced going forward. There are always very good players in this league.”

 Davis has seven first-year players signed for the 2009-10 season. That’ll make the Friars the least-experienced team in the conference, but Davis thinks PC fans will be happy with the new talent and bringing some of the powerhouse teams down a peg or two has to help.

 “I feel good about our talent level,” he said. “This year you could take a handful of teams from the league and they were all national championship contenders. I expect it to be about the same again but I think we can be more than competitive in that mix.”

Draft: All in

 Anyone with a pulse, it seems, is declaring for the NBA Draft. Even kids who aren’t even in college yet. Ater Majok, a 6-10, 230-pound forward, sat out at UConn last season because of eligibility issues but still entered his name into the draft. Like too many kids, he’s doing so simply to gauge his skills among pro scouts. He has not hired an agent and plans to be at UConn in the fall where he’ll likely become eligible in the second semester of next season. UConn badly needs Majok to make up for the loss of Thabeet and Jeff Adrien.

 “I feel it will help me to test the process and get feedback on my strengths and weaknesses,” Majok said. “It will allow me to get a better idea of what areas in my game need improvement and make me a better player in the future. I will not be hiring an agent and I enter this process with the full intention of assessing my abilities and returning to Connecticut in 2009-10.”

 This makes the NCAA’s recent attempt at altering the process of declaring for the draft mandatory. New rules could be put into place where kids can declare by the NBA’s April deadline but will then have only one week or so to either stay in the draft or pull their names out. Currently, you have until one week before the June draft to drop out.

Robinson gets rolling

We knew it wouldn’t take Craig Robinson long to make his mark at Oregon State. The ex-Brown coach won seven PAC-10 games (the Beavers won zero in 2008) and finished 18-18 overall after winning the College Basketball Invitational over UTEP. The 18 wins are the most at OSU in 19 years.

 Robinson also quickly elevated the Beavers’ national profile in recruiting. According to Rivals.com, Oregon State is bringing in the 21st best recruiting class (5 players) in the country. Villanova has the No. 1 rated class. UConn (9), Louisville (15) and Marquette (17) also made the top 20.

No need for school

 Who needs college basketball. That’s the mantra of a two elite American high school players.

 One, guard Brandon Jennings, skipped college this season and played a year of pro ball in Italy. He performed well enough that he’s now slotted in the first round of this June’s draft by most scouts.

 But meet Jeremy Tyler. He’s a 6-10 high school junior from San Diego who verbally committed to Louisville a few months back. After weighing his options, Tyler is now reportedly ready to skip his last year of high school and play two years in Europe to prepare for the draft.

 “Nowadays people look to college for more off-the-court stuff versus being in the gym and getting better,” Tyler told The New York Times. “If you’re really focused on getting better, you go play pro somewhere. Pro guys will get you way better than playing against college guys.”

 If Tyler follows through on his plan, he may indeed be blazing a unique path that other elite prep players could follow. But to discard a year spent playing for Rick Pitino or another elite college coach as somehow meaningless is folly. Tyler also obviously cares little about the real reason these kids should be enrolling at college: an education.