About 10 weeks from now, the heat will turn up on Darrell Arthur. The NCAA Tournament will have felt like nothing compared to the decision he’ll be facing.

“Does he stay or does he go?” will be the question on everyone’s minds. And thanks to what Kansas University’s 6-foot-9 freshman forward has proven midway through his first collegiate season, it’s already a conversation piece.

What you see is undeniably impressive: the NBA body, the ferocity and hops around the rim and the cool-under-any-circumstance demeanor.

The numbers are there, too. Arthur is KU’s third-leading scorer (11.8 ppg) and rebounder (4.9 rpg) and leads the team in blocked shots (35) through 17 games.

It’s what you don’t see that makes the Dallas native an even more desirable prospect in the pro ranks: the coachability, humility and the drive.

All of those qualities say that he could be one of those special talents down the road.

In other words, he has enormous potential.

And that could go a long way in the NBA Draft.

Gone are the days where four years of blossoming in a college program and becoming a bona fide producer are most of what helps a player make pro money. Now, it’s not so much based on what a player has proven, but what executives, scouts and experts think that player someday can prove.

Arthur fits both molds. He already has shown he can fit in at the highest level of college basketball. But at the same time, there’s the great unknown of where he could top out.

How much of that maturation process will take place in Lawrence? Well, that’s what remains to be seen.

‘He doesn’t have an ego’

C.J. Miles isn’t what one would call a seasoned NBA veteran at just 19 years old. But in the middle of his second year with the Utah Jazz, he knows enough to say Arthur would have no problem fitting in the world he now knows.

Miles and Arthur were AAU teammates, running the circuit together on Team Texas. The two also competed against each other during the high school season in Dallas – Arthur at South Oak Cliff, Miles not too far away at Skyline.

Miles, originally a Texas commit who also was recruited by Kansas before jumping straight to the NBA, played in the 2005 McDonald’s All-American game with current Jayhawks Julian Wright and Mario Chalmers.

“I always knew he was going to be that good,” said Miles, who recently watched Arthur play against South Carolina. “He’s an athlete who runs the floor like a deer for a guy his size. He blocks shots, does a lot of things. He always seems to get better.”

Arthur’s drive was sparked after his breakout season as a high school junior, in which he led his team to the first of its two consecutive 4A crowns.

“I started competing a lot in AAU tournaments, stuff like that, and high school ball got real strong for me. It started getting crazy because a whole lot of coaches started coming after me,” Arthur said. “That’s when I knew I could take this farther than that. I always wanted to go to college. My mom always influenced me into going to college and getting my education.”

Kansas University freshman Darrell Arthur has displayed the skills, body type and personality to excel in the NBA. He soon will be faced with the decision to jump to the pro ranks or stay for his sophomore year.

The improvement in his game was natural with his progressing, strong frame. It also stemmed from one of the 230-pounder’s more likable qualities: his coachability.

“He’s very respectful, probably one of the most coachable kids I’ve had as far as taking the information and applying it immediately,” said South Oak Cliff coach James Mays. “He doesn’t have an ego. He’s not stuck on himself like a lot of kids are. He’s constantly in the mode that he needs to improve.”

Mays said he saw it first hand during Arthur’s final year with the Golden Bears.

Between Arthur’s junior and senior seasons, the star forward applied himself like never before in polishing his game and truly hitting the weight room, Mays said. But with that came some on-court adjustments, with opponents double- and triple-teaming him.

Where he was putting in 22 points and 17 rebounds a night as a junior, he dipped to 18 and 10 in his senior year. But he was better for it.

“It enabled him to really improve. He became a better passer, and he’s very unselfish – we stress more of a team concept in our part of Texas,” Mays said. “He won’t say it, but he knows he can outplay a lot of the kids, if not dominate.”

Arthur has always been his own biggest critic. Mays said it was like clockwork – a bad game always preceded a big night in the gym.

In college, at times it hasn’t worked that easily. Instead of one bad night, recently it turned into a sting of poor outings, as Arthur battled not only the fabled freshman wall, but also a bout with the flu.

“He’s going through something that most people go through to start the season, but his is coming just a little bit later, but he was so good early,” KU coach Bill Self said of Arthur, who scored in double figures in seven of his first eight college games, including 26 points against Towson, 22 against Oral Roberts and 19 in the Jayhawks’ big win over top-ranked and defending national champion Florida.

However, he enters tonight’s game against Missouri with just one double-figure outing in his last six games, including just 13 points with five rebounds in KU’s first two Big 12 games.

“He’s doing a good job. He just hasn’t played quite the way he played to start the season. But he’ll get that back. That, to me, isn’t a major concern,” Self added.

Heralded class

So far this season, a heralded freshman class – including Arthur, Ohio State’s Greg Oden, North Carolina’s Brandan Wright and Texas’ Kevin Durant – has added new life and zest to the college hoops game.

It’s probable none of the four would be Dick Vitale Diaper Dandies candidates if not for controversial new rule that, starting with the 2006 NBA Draft, requires players to be a year removed from high school to enter.

It came on the heels of a 2005 Draft in which eight of the 60 players selected were recent high school grads.

One goal was to improve the quality of talent coming into the league. It also was meant to bolster the college game – making sure the country’s top high school players made it to the collegiate floor, even if just for one year.

But just as two years ago the big question involved which of the country’s top high school prospects would jump to the pros, that debate now will shift to members of that freshman class.

“It’s not much different than a high school kid leaving,” said Los Angeles Lakers assitant general manager Ronnie Lester, an All-American and four-year starter at Iowa in the late 1970s who was a first-round NBA draft pick in 1980 and played seven seasons in the league.

“A lot of these kids who are big-time high school players … they go to college and don’t play as much as they think they should. Much doesn’t change in a year.

“For one, most kids don’t have the physical makeup to play in this league. They can’t match up physically. Very few of them can,” Lester added. “If they can match up physically, they’re not mature enough to play at this level. They see (NBA) players on TV, but they don’t see what it takes to get there.

“It’s a daunting task for a guy who’s 18 or 19 years old,” added Lester, whose organization has also made a pair of widely-publicized first-round selections of high school stars – Kobe Bryant in 1996 and Andrew Bynum in 2005.

Miles tackled the “daunting task” head on.

“The lifestyle was just so much different, so much faster, it was crazy,” said Miles, who this season is averaging 3.1 points per game for the Jazz. “In college, there’s still a little bit of shelter with coaches (and) everybody looking out for you. In the NBA, you’re just there, by yourself. Plus there’s the age gap of everybody else, and the closest person is three years older than you.

“The rule, I can’t really say I disagree with the rule, but I can’t say I agree with it either, because I made the jump.”

Tuning out

A handful of Jayhawks will have college vs. pro decisions to make once this season is over. No one’s, though, is as intriguing as Arthur’s, as his freshman class is the first testing subject for the NBA’s new standards.

Of course, some of the buzz already has hit Arthur’s ears.

“I just say thanks and walk away,” he said with a smile regarding random NBA questions. “I’m just trying to get as much out of the coaching as I can.

“Yeah, for right now it is (easy not to think about), because we have so many (conference) games coming up right now, I’m just thinking straight about the games, not even thinking about that until after the games.”

One draft site, NBADraft.net, projects that the freshman big man won’t leave until after his sophomore season.

Then there’s ESPN.com NBA Insider Chad Ford, who in a late December column called Arthur the fifth-ranked freshman NBA prospect.

As far as Arthur’s chances in this June’s draft said, “Given his size, athleticism and position, he should be a Top-10 pick,” Ford said.

KU coach Bill Self wouldn’t disagree with Arthur’s NBA potential. He knew that fully when recruiting him.

“Darrell I think is going to be a very high draft pick when his time’s right, but, in all honesty, who knows what the right timing will be for him?” Self said. “I would think that he’s a guy, that we thought, if he did what he’s supposed to do, he’d have potential to not finish his career here, and whether that’s after one, two or three (years), that still remains to be seen.”

Just as Arthur has put the thought on the backburner for the time being, so has Self. It’s especially easy with a player like the unassuming Arthur, intent on getting better at this level.

“Unbelievable talent,” Self said. “But he’s got a ways to go, and he’d be the first to admit that.”