Given a chance yesterday to quell increasing speculation that he is headed to the NBA instead of Washington, Seattle Prep's Martell Webster instead only added fuel.

Webster, who signed to play next season at UW, is in New York to play tomorrow in the Jordan Classic all-star game.

Asked by a columnist for CBS SportsLine yesterday for his thoughts, Webster sounded like he's favoring the NBA.

"Apparently my (NBA) stock is going well right now," Webster said. "I've got a pretty good chance of going early first round, top 10 right now. You hear all kinds of things, and I want to make that official, so I'm working my tail off in these practices. If it's legit, you can pretty much say I'm going to go."

Huskies coaches have been optimistic all season that Webster would play for the Huskies at least one season. But one source said the general feeling around UW lately is that the pendulum is swinging in favor of Webster heading to the NBA.

High-school players and underclassmen have until May 14 to declare for the draft. If they don't hire an agent, they can pull out by June 21.

UW has already suffered one loss, with junior guard Nate Robinson announcing this week he will enter the draft.

Also playing in New York is Jon Brockman, a UW signee from Snohomish who reportedly broke his nose in practice yesterday and will play the game with a mask.