Leading off today: The high school senior who had claimed he was duped into believing he was recruited to play football at Cal admitted last night he made up the story.

   Kevin Hart, a 6-foot-5, 290-pound offensive lineman for Fernley (Nev.) High, offered a broad apology in a statement he issued through the Lyon County School District.

   "When I realized that wasn't going to happen, I made up what I wanted to be reality. I am sorry for disappointing and embarrassing my family, coaches, Fernley High School, the involved universities and reporters covering the story," Hart said.

   Sheriff's detectives had been unable to corroborate Hart's claims that he had been duped by a man he paid to help promote him to college football programs. Lt. Rob Hall said Hart had not informed Lyon County detectives of his confession, and they would continue to investigate to see if Hart had broken any laws, such as filing a false police report.

   At the announcement ceremony Friday, Hart said he talked with Cal head Coach Jeff Tedford many times, and that "personal experience" led to his decision to choose the Golden Bears over Oregon. But the announcement was questioned almost immediately, and on Monday officials with California and Oregon said Hart was never recruited.

   Kincannon suits up: Jayvonna Kincannon returned to the court for Bufflo McKinley (12-3) for the first time since being suspended from school five weeks ago and scored 15 points in a 56-48 victory over Performing Arts.

   The senior had been given a seven-week suspension after seeking to address the Buffalo Board of Education over what she considered the unfair dismissal of volunteer coach Michelle Stiles. The suspension was shortened by two weeks over the weekend.

   Class dismissed: I don't agree with them for the most part, but I do recognize that there are folks out there who are passionate in their dislike of the private and Catholic schools.

   Many of their complaints about the sports programs at these schools are actually misguided or unsupported by facts. They complain, for instance, that the private schools have an advantage because they do not have to abide by district boundaries.

   This ignores the fact that many school districts have open-enrollment policies that allow students to attend whichever high school in the community they desire. If you don't think that's an issue, wait until Rochester Charlotte cleans your school's clock in Class B basketball early next month in sectionals and perhaps even states. Ditto in Greece, where the athletes in many sports gravitate to anywhere but Greece Olympia in search of winning.

   But I'm not here today to pick on the public schools. Rather, I find myself in the somewhat unusual position of dumping on the private schools based on the news that came out of Buffalo this week. Once again, the CHSAA there has waited until virtually the end of the regular season to place its schools into tournament classifications.

   And they've managed to choose poorly anyway.

   The classification system should be cut-and-dried — align your divisions however you so desire for the regular season, but schools should be placed into playoff classes based on enrollment. And this should be done over the summer. If administrators at a particular school desire to move up one or more classes in one or more sports, they should be accommodated — again, well before the season begins.

   That's why what came out of Buffalo this week is truly annoying. Monsignor Martin Association ADs voted Monday to place Nichols, the No. 1 team in The Buffalo News’ small-schools poll and the NYSSWA's top-ranked Class B team, into Class A alongside traditional large schools Canisius, St. Joe’s and St. Francis.

   Assuming that Nichols makes it past that obstacle (and the Big Green won't unless Christian Laettner and the Torgalski brothers get their eligibility restored) and then gets past the downstate CHSAA rep, I give that team zero chance of beating Peekskill or Jamesville-DeWitt in the Federation tourney, and only a slight chance against Newark. On the other hand, Nichols vs. Charlotte or Bishop Kearney at the Federation tourney would have been interesting.

   But the MMA's criteria calls for classifying by strength rather than by common sense. So Nichols will get fed to the vultures but Charlotte will be free to terrorize Class B perhaps similar to the fashion in which the Chris Tuck and Press Murphy teams walloped the opposition in 1983-84.

   The Nichols decision might turn out to be somewhat of a formality anyway, because the statewide CHSAA requires that the Manhattan Cup winner plays in the state Class A tourney. But that's not fair either, and two wrongs do not make a right.

   College recruits: Newsday probably put more effort into football Letter of Intent day than the rest of the state's papers combined this week, piecing together several strong stories.

   One of them was a story by Roderick Boone pointing out that Division I recruiters have not exactly been swarming to Long Island recently. Boone delved into the issue of whether players in Sections 8 and 11 are being hurt by their inability to participate in the state tournament and be seen at the Carrier Dome for the finals.

   "I don't think that has anything to do with it," Rutgers assistant coach Kyle Flood told Boone. "College recruiting has gotten to the point (that) there's so much information and so much correspondence in terms of availability of video, DVDs being mass-produced, that if you are a legitimate Division I player the colleges will find you. There's no doubt about it."

   I echo that sentiment but would like to attach one asterisk to the thought. If college basketball coaches adhered to the same school of thought, they wouldn't attend any of the summer camps or AAU tournaments. In reality, though, the summer circuit is their most critical time for evaluating players. I believe much of that has to do with the fact that camps and AAU ball bring together the best of the best, which gives coaches a chance to see how prospects fare against athletes they could be facing a year or two later in the Big East or ACC.

   I doubt that one or two extra football games against top-notch playoff opponents makes a significant difference, but I do think that every little bit helps.

   Another good read came courtesy of Kimberley Martin, who wrote about how technology has changed the recruiting process.

   Here's her lead:

   "Rob Calabrese stood in the Orlando airport, confident he had made the right choice. The day before, the East Islip quarterback had visited the University of Central Florida, had fallen in love with the campus and had given head coach George O'Leary his commitment by the afternoon.

   "Then his high school football coach's cell phone rang. It was the University of Maryland. A Terrapins assistant coach had heard that Calabrese, who was scheduled to visit College Park two days later, had already committed to UCF.

   "'We're looking around, like, "Are we being followed?"' said Sal Ciampi Jr., Calabrese's coach. 'It wasn't even 24 hours.'

   More recruiting: One of the perks of my part-time job at FOXSports.com is that I have access to premium (i.e., pay-per-view) content on the Scout.com site, including recruiting databases. I'll try to put that to use in the next day or so to compile some data on how New York has done with respect to churning out Division I football talent.

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