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Whether Texas guard Reger Dowell was involuntarily pushed off the Arizona Wildcats' 2009-10 basketball roster, possibly to make room for incoming big men, may never be known for sure.

Coaches cannot talk about recruits until their letters of intent are signed, leaving the only public side of the story to Dowell's father, Dale, who said the offer to his son was revoked.

What is certain: That commitments, the nonbinding verbal acceptance of a school's scholarship offer, don't mean much sometimes. In recent years, Arizona has seen two players decommit and then recommit, one decommit for good and another (Dowell) possibly having coaches decommit from him.

That's the way it goes in today's fast-paced recruiting game, several national analysts and UA athletic director Jim Livengood said Tuesday. In the race for talent, schools must offer scholarships to the best players early in their high school career, then keep room for them for up to several years if they accept.

Because players cannot sign a binding letter of intent until November of their senior year, this often leaves plenty of time for second thoughts on both sides.

"The last number of years, commitments have come to mean less and less," Livengood said. "So it's hard to say it's OK on one side and that it's not OK for coaches. In a perfect world, what I would like is for everybody to keep their commitment. I'm not condoning it on either side."

Two trends are troubling coaches. For one, the NCAA has cut back on the number of recruiting events coaches can watch, recently voting to keep April events off-limits, effectively compressing the off-season evaluation period to July only.

"You've got a huge controversy now that April's eliminated," Rivals.com's Jerry Meyer said. "It only feeds into more problems like this. The coaches get desperate and they make rash judgments, and there's already enough pressure in the recruiting world."

Another pressure, Livengood said, is that coaches are penalized for transfers under the Academic Progress Rate — an annual NCAA report that grades Division I universities' teams on eligibility, retention and graduation rates — meaning coaches need to be certain their incoming recruits will stick around.

Solutions aren't easy. Meyer said recruits can help by doing "simple math" to see if an offering school really has room and, if they do have a scholarship offer revoked, be sure to acknowledge it.

"If more parents went on the record like Reger's dad, that might stop it," Meyer said. "But the players and their parents are usually embarrassed (when an offer is pulled), so it's a big cover-up. They'll make it look like the player decommitted, when in reality, the player was dropped."

Another improvement would come from coaches offering letters of intent earlier, said analyst Dave Telep of Scout.com.

"It's gotten to a ridiculous level," Telep said. "I'm a sound advocate of if you want to offer somebody, offer a letter of intent right then. It forces the kid to make better choices and the school to make better choices."

Telep said his criticism doesn't apply to Dowell's situation, because he wasn't offered a scholarship until relatively late (Aug. 25). But Dowell was given the offer, his father said, because UA coach Lute Olson had become frustrated in waiting for top-15 point guard Abdul Gaddy to decide if he would recommit to Arizona.

Once Gaddy committed on Sept. 15, Olson was suddenly one over the scholarship limit for 2009-10, although he will gain two spots if Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill leave next spring. Meanwhile, the UA is continuing to recruit big men such as Anthony Stover, Andy Brown and Angus Brandt. (Stover's father said Anthony will decide probably today or Thursday.)

Convincing the NCAA to change the letter of intent date would be a "pretty hard sell," said UA compliance director Bill Morgan. Adding an early period for football, in addition to the February period, is possible, however.

"The main reason would be to get an earlier letter of intent so they don't have to baby-sit for the whole recruiting cycle," Morgan said. But "the reason it's out there (in February) is the idea of getting to know the kids better first, so you don't make character mistakes.

"It's really getting to be a strange situation, not just football but in so many other sports. So many are taking visits in the spring or summer (before their seniors years) and committing in the summer, and maybe not even taking an official visit until after they've signed a letter of intent."

There is one other problem with no easy fix, says Clark Francis of HoopScoop recruiting service: today's society.

"People's word means a lot less in this day and age," Francis said. "That's a big problem."

Despite ending his UA basketball career on a rough note, UA center Kirk Walters may have found a professional home.

Walters said Tuesday he has signed a contract with the NBA Development League and will be eligible for the league's upcoming player draft. While he is not guaranteed a spot on a team, the opportunity is a good one, considering that Walters suffered through an injury-plagued 2006-07 season and played only sparingly under interim head coach Kevin O'Neill last season.

Walters' average of 7.0 minutes in 22 games last season left him little professional leverage.

"I did look overseas, but I just haven't had a lot of playing time," Walters said. "I really only had tapes from my junior year. But I felt like with the D-League, if I play solidly, that might open up opportunities overseas, or if I have a really good year, maybe even in the NBA."

Walters, who received the invitation after playing in a D-League came in Atlanta over the summer, said he is now working out in Phoenix while preparing for the season.