College Hoops Signing Day Is All In The Family

We've written a lot about family and college hoops of late. Parents are taking the lead on announcing NBA draft intentions and some recruits are picking big conferences over four years with pops.

But today is shaping up to be a more family friendly basketball signing day with the big news originating in the state of Michigan -- and it doesn't have anything to do with either of the state's marquee programs.

First, the story of Trey Zeigler, whose father, Ernie (pictured), is the head coach at Central Michigan. The Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun has the details:

Mt. Pleasant senior guard Trey Zeigler has chosen to play college basketball for Central Michigan University. Sources close to the situation at CMU informed The Morning Sun of the decision as Zeigler has opted to play for his father, Ernie Zeigler, who finalized a new four-year contract as men’s basketball coach on Tuesday.

Trey Zeigler has chosen CMU over several other programs, including Michigan State, UCLA, Michigan, and Arizona State.

Top 50 recruits are few and far between in the Mid-American Conference. (In fact, it's rare they land in the conference in back-to-back seasons, but if this comes to pass, that will be the case. Akron landed a top 50 recruit in Zeke Marshall last season.) Zeigler is the No. 26 player in the nation according to Rivals, the highest MAC recruit I can find in the records on their site dating back to 2003. Ditto for Scout, which goes back to 2002 in its online rankings.

The next bit of family business is the ongoing recruiting of Ray McCallum, the No. 60 player in the 2010 class according to Rivals. His father, Ray McCallum Sr., is the coach at Detroit. Like Zeigler, McCallum could announce the decision to play for his father today. UPDATE: Ray McCallum will play for his dad, he announced on Wednesday.

ESPNU is carrying a signing day special starting at 4 p.m. ET. Along with Zeigler and McCallum, the No. 1 player from this class (Brandon Knight) and the 2011 class (Mike Gilchrist) could both announce their intentions to go to Kentucky. How's that for some late-day drama?

But back to the guys who might play for their respective dads. Yahoo's Dan Wetzel had an interesting take on the situation via Twitter on Tuesday:

If me, I'd play for dad. No one looks back on life and regrets helping their family.

While I can't really argue with that point, isn't there something to be said for going to a program that has a rep of producing NBA players? (This was an assertion that CBS' Gary Parrish took some issue with.) And really, my point was more playing Devil's Advocate anyway, but there is something to be said for the high-major route to the NBA. Sure, you could star at a school like Davidson, but big numbers are always viewed with great skepticism at low and mid-major institutions. Look at some of the guys declaring early from high-major programs and think about the numbers they would've had to put up at a smaller school to even think about declaring.

Ultimately, though, I love the idea that these two guys could stay home and help out their families. It's an unusually selfless act on the college hoops scene.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.