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It might have been the seminal moment of Jereme Richmond's basketball career, and a net was nowhere in sight.

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Kelly KlineJereme Richmond stepped up to help his high school basketball team.

"The legendary IHOP pancake breakfast as it's come to be known," according to Waukegan (Ill.) coach Ron Ashlaw, wasn't about dunks and defense. It was about what direction the Bulldogs were heading.

Months earlier, following a loss toward the end of a disappointing 2007-08 season, Richmond and Ashlaw had it out. After the incident, Richmond was no longer a member of the team. He didn't even attend Waukegan's playoff games as a spectator.

Richmond, a nationally-hyped recruit since age 14, has undeniable talent. The fifth-ranked small forward and the No. 17 overall player in the ESPNU 100, he committed to Illinois as a high school freshman.

"In order for my team to grow, I would have to grow up," Richmond said. "We had a bad season, and we couldn't figure out what was going on, why we were losing all those ball games. I thought that if I bettered myself then it would better my teammates."

Richmond's new approach, of course, was born over breakfast with his coach.

"Part of the positive of that conversation is that we realized how many things we do have in common," Ashlaw said. "It was an opportunity to speak very honestly and heartfelt. We are both individuals who want to have success and be around success and do all the things that lead to it."

With coach and player on the same page, the Bulldogs reached new heights in the 2008-09 season.

A year after limping to a 13-14 finish, Richmond and the Bulldogs went an impressive 26-5. Led by Richmond and Fairfield recruit Colin Nickerson, Waukegan made it to the state finals in Peoria, Ill., for the first time in school history.

The Bulldogs' improvement was largely due to a shift in Richmond's style of play.

The 6-foot-7, 200-pound Richmond is a prototypical college wing. In the high school ranks, however, he also has a body that can dominate in the paint. When he embraced his size and skill advantage good things happened -- he averaged 20.1 points, 9.7 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.3 blocks as a junior.

Richmond's junior season gave him an opportunity to silence his critics. Since he arrived on the Chicago basketball scene as a schoolboy phenom at North Shore Prep (he transferred to Waukegan before his sophomore season), Richmond had been tagged, he says unfairly, as a top-notch talent who wasn't receptive to coaching. His willingness to adapt to his teammates dispelled that notion.

"A lot of times it's hard not being into yourself when you get so much positive hype at such a young age," Richmond said. "My approach now is that basketball is a much larger game and I would never ever dream of knowing it all. I just listen to everybody's opinions now."

Listening to coaches is one thing. Another part of the maturation process is filtering out some of the praise and criticism that goes with being tabbed as the Next Big Thing.

"I think he's handled it quite well," said Jereme's father, Bill Richmond. "To come from a 14-year-old child to where he is now. … There's a lot that I don't think that I could handle as an adult as far as the attention. It been a process for him and it's an ongoing process."

The hype surrounding Richmond has always been justified. His half-court heroics against Warren in the supersectional of the state tournament took his growing legend to a different level -- one that is beginning to rise to Garnettian proportions.

With 4.6 seconds remaining, Richmond's future Illinois teammate Brandon Paul sank three free throws to put Warren ahead by one point. Richmond, who was playing with a 103 degree fever, calmly took the inbounds pass, dribbled the ball some 40 feet away from the basket and took a jump shot.

"I didn't think it was real at first when the ball went through," Richmond said. "I thought that I was just dreaming. When all the people started rushing and I realized what happened I couldn't express my emotions after that game. It was just crazy."

Because Eric Gordon spurned Illinois at the last minute in 2007, there is some fear among Illini fans on the blogosphere that Richmond will follow suit. He is quick to assuage those concerns.

"People in Champaign don't have anything to worry about things on my end," he said. "I'll be down there to do my job."

Before he concerns himself with Big Ten titles, Richmond has some work to do in the Southern portion of the state. He says the effects of the Bulldogs' season-ending defeat in the state title game still linger.

"That loss was definitely motivating, especially for a player like me," Richmond says. "I feel like every loss is my fault. I watch a lot of tape on the game and I felt like we made so many mistakes. … We lost the game by three and I think I missed four free throws. It's little things like that that I think will ultimately propel this team to victory."