Jeff Foote and Jordan Eglseder are fringe NBA prospects looking to impress league scouts and front office personnel to improve their stock in the upcoming June draft.
Their size - both are 7 feet tall - got them invited to the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, an early audition for 64 college seniors with designs on continuing their basketball careers.
Their play on the court will determine whether their dreams live on.
``What I tell the guys is you get the same amount of time to go out and play, and you need to go out there and you need to be absolutely exhausted,'' Ryan Blake, the NBA's assistant director of scouting, said from his front row seat at the PIT at Churchland High School.
``If you don't go for that rebound and you're 4 feet away, I don't want to see that.''
The PIT, in its 58th year, is held just for players like Foote, who played at Cornell; Northern Iowa's Eglseder and 6-11 Hamady Ndiaye of Rutgers. Ndiaye, who came the United States from Senegal six years ago, has defensive skills that could get him drafted.
The players are divided into eight teams and play a tournament under the scrutinizing eyes of potential employers. Games began Wednesday and continue through Saturday night.
Rare is the PIT participant that gets selected in the first round of the draft, but a good showing could lift them into the second round.
The list of former PIT participants who went on to NBA careers includes Hall of Famers like Rick Barry, John Stockton and Earl Monroe. And only last year, DeMarre Carroll, Wes Matthews and Jon Brockman parlayed strong efforts into spots on NBA rosters this season.
``The door of opportunity only opens once most times,'' said Jahidi White, a former Georgetown center who used the similar Desert Classic to show scouts what he could do after a broken ankle derailed his senior season. ``You've got to take advantage of it. These guys got to realize, this is a million-to-one chance.
``It's a small fraternity that they're trying to be in and they got to know right now - you've got to play every game like it's your last.''
White's dominant performance at the now-defunct Desert Classic tournament in Arizona helped him get selected in the second round of the 1998 NBA draft by the Washington Wizards.
He played seven years in the league and returned to the PIT this year as a coach.
Foote got his invitation in late January, even before the Big Red turned heads by reaching the regional semifinals of this year's NCAA tournament. He said the past few months have made him more hopeful about what his basketball future could be than he was originally.
``I had pretty much planned on going where I could go with it,'' he said, ``but I think it showed me that I can go a little bit further than I initially thought, maybe potentially to the NBA or a very good overseas league. I think it really gave me the extra step of confidence.''
And that, he said, made the invitation to the PIT all the more meaningful.
``It's a chance to maybe push yourself into the next level as opposed to playing overseas,'' he said. ``You can get a good look from an NBA team here, and if you perform well and play well, you can really get a good look. The extra pressure that you put on yourself is good for you, because it motivates you to play that much harder.''
On Thursday night, matched against Eglseder, Foote had 14 points, nine rebounds and two blocks in 27 minutes. Eglseder scored 16, had eight rebounds and made 1 of 3 3-pointers.
``It's something I can do, just something I've never been able to show,'' Eglseder said of his shooting range.
Earlier, Ndiaye had 10 points, nearly all on dunks, and four blocks in 20 minutes. He also impressed Blake with how his mere presence intimidated the opposition.
At one point, 6-10 Eric Boateng of Arizona State was open about 10 feet from the basket, but Ndiaye was lurking. Rather than pull up to shoot, Boateng kicked the ball back out.
``I love the kid,'' Blake said of Ndiaye, who was third nationally with an average of 4.5 blocks this season. ``He's getting fed the ball, and when he's not fed the ball, he's running the court. He's got great court awareness, comes from the weakside, blocks shots.''
Ndiaye, who has been playing basketball for only six years, realizes that his length and speed are coveted assets in the NBA.
``This is really big for me,'' he said. ``I have big goals, big dreams.''
So, too, does Justin Neuhaus, one of the most unknown players at the PIT.
Blake said teams were interested to see what he could do because he's 6-10 and averaged 19.4 points as a senior, but played for Colorado Christian, a Division II school in Denver.
Neuhaus got his opportunity as an alternate when Duke center Brian Zoubek withdrew late because of a hand injury. Neuhaus scored 11 points in his first 19 minutes of action.
At just 220 pounds, though, he got pushed around quite a bit, and when he made a spin move late in the game and went up for a left-handed layup, it was swatted away.
``I've got a 10-year plan,'' he said later, ``of playing in Italy.''
Like Neuhaus, most players here will need some kind of backup plan.
