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Blessed by Southern California's broad recruiting terrain, UCLA and USC both have secured three prominent basketball recruits from the high school class of 2008. All are Californians familiar with the neighborhood.

If you're Arizona, Oregon or Washington State, you start at a disadvantage. What can be done? Here's what: Have the best recruits come to you.

Just in time, Tucson has become part of the vast AAU Across America Basketball Tour.

If all of Lute Olson's recruiting dominoes fall perfectly, the core of a potential 2010 Final Four team will make its debut at McKale Center this weekend.

Center Terrence Jennings will be here from Mount Zion Christian Academy in North Carolina.

Point guard Brandon Jennings is flying in from Virginia's Oak Hill Academy.

Shooting guard Brendon Lavender, who has already pledged to be a Wildcat, is driving down from Phoenix.

Sacramento, Calif., power forward Matt Simpkins will be getting his first look at Tucson.

All are Top 50-type recruits, AAU ballplayers, who will play in the talent-laden 32-team Cactus Classic over the weekend.

But because the NCAA has declared May and June to be recruiting "dead periods,'' Olson and his inexhaustible recruiter, Josh Pastner, won't be able to so much as take a peek into the basketball arena.

"We'll put up some signs at the office to explain that we can't make in-person contact with any of the guys who will be here,'' Pastner said. "But it's still a great benefit to have the Cactus Classic because all of those great players will be able to see our campus, our arena and get a feel for our community.''

To more than 150 high school basketball prospects, Tucson will no longer be viewed as a remote part of the Great Unknown.

This is the second year of the Cactus Classic, operated by Tucson businessman Jim Storey, an event that puts the UA in the path of the AAU basketball storm that rages from April through August.

If your city isn't part of the tour, you might as well be Montana State.

Competition is so intense that the Cactus Classic is one of two major AAU events this week, stacked opposite the adidas May Classic in Bloomington, Ind.

Next week, North Carolina, Duke and North Carolina State will benefit from the Bob Gibbons AAU Tournament of Champions in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle, which will be held opposite the Weber Memorial AAU Tournament in College Park, Md.

Many of the nation's 25 leading college basketball communities will stage similar AAU tournaments this summer. There's the Battle of the Bluff in Memphis, the Kentucky Hoopfest in Louisville, the Carrier Dome National at Syracuse, and so on.

You don't want to be left out.

Here's a blueprint:

J'Mison Morgan is a 6-foot-10-inch high school center from Dallas who completed his junior season with scholarship offers from Georgia Tech, Kansas, Georgetown and Nebraska.

He was generally considered a Top 100 player at a premium position, but nothing extraordinary.

After Morgan's South Oak Cliff prep season ended, he joined Dallas-based DFW Urban, which plays a national AAU schedule.

In a recent four-week stretch, Morgan played in Houston's Kingwood Classic, the Tennessee Prairie Land Tournament, Illinois' Run N' Slam Tournament and the Dallas Next Level Invitational. Recruiters and scouts have a three-word term for what happened to Morgan: He blew up.

Arizona offered Morgan a scholarship. So did UCLA and Alabama. Morgan is now a Top 50 player on every school's must-have list.

UA sophomore-to-be Jordan Hill was similarly "discovered'' at an AAU event this time last year.

"The level of talent coming to Tucson is about as good as it gets,'' said Pastner. "The top kids from the classes of 2008, 2009 and 2010 will be here. We, as coaches, won't be able to see them, but they'll get a sense of who we are.''

The AAU basketball circuit isn't a party hour.

Tucson's Sporting Chance AAU team, coached by Gary Malis, played in the prestigious Las Vegas Spring Showcase two weeks ago and will be part of the Cactus Classic.

"On Friday night in Vegas, we played a late game and didn't get to our hotel rooms until 1 in the morning,'' Malis said. "We played again at 8 the next morning, followed by a 10:30 a.m. game. It's pure basketball. It's a great time for a young man to improve his skills and earn a scholarship. Everybody's watching you, recruiting analysts, Internet people, you name it. Word gets out fast.''

Malis' team has already been invited to the West Coast's top summer AAU events: Las Vegas' Main Event, the Southern California Pangos Cream of the Crop Tournament and the Los Angeles Best of the Summer showcase.

Notice the common thread? Most of the events are in Las Vegas or Los Angeles. Thus, Tucson's ability to wedge into the schedule helps the UA bridge its identity gap.

"We won't be invisible this week,'' said Pastner. "Until August, the NCAA permits text-messaging. We'll use that to our advantage. The kids coming to Tucson will know we're here.''