AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – NBA scouts no longer show up regularly at high school basketball games since collective bargaining mandated that players can’t be drafted until one year after their high school class graduates. But that doesn’t mean they don’t pay attention to the careers of players until they get to college.

If that were the case, nobody would be talking about Ohio State’s Daequan Cook as a likely first-rounder. Cook, part of a dynamic Ohio State freshman class that included lottery locks Greg Oden and Mike Conley, got off to a solid start for the Buckeyes last season, scoring 14 points or more in seven of his first eight games.

But roles changed when Oden joined the team as he recovered from wrist surgery and Cook gradually got squeezed out of the starting lineup and almost out of the rotation. By the time the Buckeyes hit the postseason on their run to the national championship game, a fourth Buckeyes freshman, David Lighty, had usurped his role.

Yet NBA scouts don’t seem deterred. Cook, in fact, canceled a workout he had scheduled with the Pistons – which caused the grapevine to ripple with speculation that some team picking before Detroit’s 27th slot had made him a promise.

A legitimate 6-foot-5 with quickness, explosion, strength and a very nice perimeter shooting stroke, Cook has every tool to be a prototypical NBA shooting guard. The knock on him is that he needs to improve his ballhandling and passing skills, yet scouts see a potentially explosive scorer lurking in Cook.

At least two and probably three players will be taken ahead of him at his position, however: Southern Cal’s Nick Young and Eastern Washington’s Rodney Stuckey are considered the top two shooting guards in this draft and it’s anybody’s guess which one will go first.

If it’s versatility you’re looking for, then Stuckey would be the choice. At 6-foot-5 with a solid build, Stuckey has the ballhandling skills and mentality to play either guard position. A sophomore, Stuckey dominated the competition in the Big Sky Conference, averaging 24.2 as a freshman and 24.6 as a sophomore when he also posted averages of 5.5 assists and 4.7 rebounds a game. His 3-point shooting might need some work; after averaging 37 percent as a freshman, Stuckey fell to 27 percent as a sophomore. Scouts tend to discount 3-point percentages because almost all players become better perimeter shooters and extend their shooting range once they get to the NBA.

Young might be the more spectacular of the two. At 6-foot-7, Young is a dazzling shot-maker who hit 44 percent beyond the 3-point arc, has a very good mid-range game and excellent body control. Some have questioned his tendency to float, but others think it’s more that the game comes so easily for Young.

The other shooting guard likely to go ahead of Cook is Rice senior Morris Almond, the consensus pick as the top shooter in the draft. He’s not a great athlete, but for his four-year college career Almond shot nearly 45 percent from the 3-point line and averaged 26.4 points a game as a senior.

Vanderbilt’s Derrick Byars is another who should be taken in the first round, a solid player with good size (6-foot-7), athleticism and shooting ability.

Two international players – Italy’s Marco Belinelli and Spain’s Rudy Fernandez – will get strong first-round consideration, as well. Belinelli is probably second to Almond as a shooter. Among the best of the rest are UCLA’s Arron Afflalo, Jackson State’s Trey Johnson and Fresno’s Quinton Hosley.

Teams that might look to draft a shooting guard in the first round: