HOMETOWN HERO: Roxbury Native Travis George was extradited to Quincy after getting in a fight in Arizona.

Take Keith Brumbaugh, for instance. Never heard of him? Well, you might have, if you were a NBA-draft junkie a few years back. Brumbaugh was one of a number of highly touted high-school players who declared for the 2005 draft, only to withdraw after finding limited interest in his services. The 6’9” star from central Florida’s Deland High suffered the same fate as players such as LaMarcus Aldridge, who thought about declaring for the same draft as Kendrick Perkins, only to have scouts tell him he’d be better off withdrawing and heading to the University of Texas. In Brumbaugh’s case, the sweet-shooting big man withdrew and enrolled in Tony Allen’s alma mater, Oklahoma State, only to be forced out of division-one ball when the NCAA challenged his suspiciously high test scores and made him retake the ACT, which he failed. This was after Brumbaugh had already been charged with shoplifting some $40 worth of junk from an Oklahoma Wal-Mart.

After dropping out, Brumbaugh returned to Florida, where he was advised to enroll in a local junior college. He apparently agreed to do so, and was on track once again to steam toward the 2007 draft — until he was pulled over last May by police for having expired tags. Instead of copping to the car tags, Brumbaugh panicked and fled the scene in shirtless-on-COPS fashion, athletically leaping a chain-link fence. Cops later found a Bushmaster automatic rifle in the trunk with 56 rounds in the magazine. The athlete was arrested for a felony — fleeing without violence — and a few other charges, but after a serendipitous court hearing, he was on course yet again to head back to school and have his record cleared six months later.

That was until a few weeks back, when Brumbaugh was caught sitting in his car in a campus parking lot with the music blaring, stoned out of his gourd. He was charged with possession of marijuana and his court situation is now totally screwed for the foreseeable future. Cross off another potential savior for the hometown heroes.

Not even close to through the fire
Then there was this juicy local tidbit from the world of once-promising NBA prospects: 6’8” Travis George, once one of the top high-school-basketball talents in New England, was extradited back to Quincy this week to face child-rape charges after cops found him playing basketball for Eastern Arizona College.

George was one of a number of big basketball talents featured in a New York Times article about basketball prep schools last winter. Despite having failed the 14 core courses needed to acquire NCAA eligibility, George had attended six different prep schools as a kind of high-school “free agent” and seemed destined to beat the system. Only problem was, the Roxbury native had an attempted-sexual-assault charge hanging over his head. Despite the fact that he never graduated high school, George ended up at EAC in Arizona, which apparently never performed a background check on him. He then got in a fight at a school football game, which led to an arrest and his extradition back to Massachusetts. Not much information is available about the original assault charge, which involved a “child younger than 14.” George, videos of whom can be found on various scouting sites, was one of a number of players often compared to Tracy McGrady.

When he’s not googling “underage giants” and “hurdling fences,” Matt Taibbi writes for Rolling Stone. He can be reached at M_Taibbi@yahoo.com .