Any Washington Hatchet basketball fan will tell you that Tyler Zeller had an outstanding junior season for the Old Gold and Black.

For the 20-4 Big 8 Conference and sectional champion Hatchets in 2006-07, Zeller averaged 18.3 ppg and 9.5 rpg while breaking his own school record in shooting 68 percent from the floor. While that sterling performance was witnessed by Washington fans this season, what might come as a pleasant surprise to Hatchet backers is that Zeller has been playing even better since the high school campaign ended than the Times-Herald Co-Player of the Year and Associated Press second team all-state selection did during the season.

Based on his play in AAU tournaments this spring, Zeller has now moved from 117th to 16th in the nation since March on a list of prep players compiled by the Web site Rivals.com. In addition, Zeller, a five-star player, is now the third rated center in the country among juniors.

And while few Hatchet fans may have seen Zeller as he has excelled against the nation’s top players in AAU tournaments across the country, college coaches have noticed. So much so that the 6-11 Zeller, who has been on the radar of some college programs since eighth grade, has become the target of a recruiting blitz that forced him to narrow down his list of possible college choices long before he intended to.

Zeller acknowledges he is playing well for his Indiana Elite squad this spring, but feels he still has room for improvement.

“I guess I’ve been playing really well. I just go out and play as well as I can every game and try to win. The team we have is great too, it helps to have a great team to play with,” said Zeller earlier this week. “I’m definitely playing better than I did last year in AAU. I’m not playing different, but there’s stuff I’ve learned how to do since last year that I’ve definitely improved on, but I’ve got a long ways to go to before I’m where I want be.”

Hatchet coach Gene Miiller says it’s his athleticism and drive to improve that makes Zeller an outstanding player and a sought after recruit.

“Here’s a kid that’s spent a lot of time in the gym working to get better. There’s not a lot of kids out there that do that anymore, but he’s one of those kids who is working on those things that can make him better,” said Miiller. “He can put the ball on the floor and go to the basket, he can catch and shoot from 20 feet, he has good low post moves, he runs the floor extremely well. He needs to continue to work in the weight room and get some strength.

“One of the things that the college coaches like about him is the way he runs the floor. There’s probably not another big guy in the country that runs the floor as well as he does,” added Miiller. “He’s got a little bounce to him, he’s a pretty athletic kid for a 7-footer, the way he runs and jumps. He has good hands too. You take any big kid that runs well and has good hands, he’s going to be a valued commodity.”

The package Zeller presents as a potential college player has college coaches all over his AAU games — more than 70 college coaches witnessed one Indiana Elite game in Houston, to see both Zeller and his talented teammates — and coming to Washington in droves.

As the scholarship offers and the attention from coaches and media grew — one night not long ago Zeller left his cell phone in his car for a while, only to return and discover 35 text messages from coaches and reporters — Zeller was forced to narrow his list down to nine schools from the nearly 30 offers he has received. That list, in alphabetical order, includes Indiana, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Notre Dame, Purdue and Tennessee.

Zeller says cutting the list to nine schools has helped to reduce the attention he’s getting from college coaches. He plans on reducing that list to five by the start of the school in the fall, then take official visits to those schools and, hopefully, be prepared to sign with a program on the first official signing day in early November. Zeller listed the three most important things he will consider in choosing a college.

“Academics, you’ve got to get a good degree. Players that I can get along with, because if you can’t get along with the players you’re not going to want to play there. And just coaches you can trust and know what they’re talking about,” said Zeller, who plans on majoring in business with a minor in engineering.

After that will come his senior season for the Hatchets. Zeller will enter the 2007-08 season as a leading candidate for Mr. Basketball, the same award his brother Luke, a junior-to-be for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, won in 2005. Should Tyler Zeller earn the coveted No. 1 jersey next spring, it would be just the third time brothers have won the award in Indiana history (Carmel’s Bill Shepherd in 1968 and Dave Shepherd in 1970 and twins Tom and Dick VanArsdale of Indianapolis Manuel in 1961).

Zeller says his senior year, along with classmates Kyle Price, Cody Lee, and Seth Coy, who is also nearly 7-0 tall, should be “fun.”

“Next year it should be fun. We’ve got a lot of seniors to be now. We have a lot of players who can step up and play,” said Zeller. “Seth should be a really big contributor, Kyle is back who should do about what he did this year. And Cody Lee should be a really good point guard. We’ll need somebody else to step up, but it should be a really good year.”