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‘‘He said I had the potential to play college ball in the Patriot League,” Petkovich said. ‘‘He said I could play for a Bucknell or a Colgate, somewhere like that. But, he said, it would take a lot of hard work. That gave me confidence and it made me feel I wasn’t doing all of this for nothing.”

The work part of the equation was no problem for the Leesburg, Va. resident. He put in hours honing his game, especially his outside shooting, and played his first season of AAU ball that summer with the Bethesda Magic. He returned for his junior year at Bullis not only a couple of inches taller, but strides ahead of where he’d been skill-wise the previous winter. It didn’t take long to see how much the hard work had paid off.

Petkovich quickly became the Bulldogs’ leading scorer (14,3 points per game), doing a lot of his damage from long range. His lanky 6-foot-5 body made him hard to defend on the perimeter for most opponents; and his bulls-eye shooting, well, it was pretty remarkable stuff. For the season, he shot 55.3 percent from the floor, 55.8 percent from 3-point land (a stellar 53 of 95), helping Bullis (16-10 record) to a third-place finish in the Interstate Athletic Conference.

‘‘As a coach, you just feel most shots are going in with him,” Kelley said. ‘‘Most of his shots are good shots and most of ’em go in. He’s got a big frame and he can shoot over players. When he’s on, and he was on a lot last year, he’s tough to defend.”

His play at Bullis, coupled with an excellent spring and summer with the Magic, started to earn him a good reputation among college scouts. Particularly those at Division I Lafayette (Pa.), who said they wanted to sign him. Lafayette plays in the Patriot League, and Petkovich visited the Easton, Pa. campus, loved it and hit it off with the coaching staff. It was a perfect fit, except for one problem: Petkovich did not have a high enough SAT score to qualify for the lofty academic standards of Lafayette. His grades were more than good enough, but he needed a better test score, about 140 points better.

So he went back to work, this time on his standardized-testing skills, spending the summer with a personal tutor and taking practice tests almost every week.

‘‘My biggest problem was with time management,” Petkovich said. ‘‘I could get the answers right, just not fast enough. So I took the test every Saturday and then reviewed how I did every Sunday with my tutor.”

In October, he took the SAT exam and scored 60 points better. Then last month his hard work officially paid off again, this time off the court. He took the test once more and got score he needed. The results arrived at his house on Nov. 20. He faxed it to the Lafayette coaches and signed a Letter of Intent to play for the Leopards that day, one day before the end of the early-signing period.

‘‘It was amazing how it worked out,” Petkovich said. ‘‘And it’s great. Lafayette is not only an unbelievable academic school — it’s near Ivy League as far as I’m concerned, but they’re also in the Patriot League and that’s, to be honest, the league I’ve always dreamed about playing in. It’s a shooter’s league. I always thought I’d be a good fit. Lafayette really feels right.”

There were other college suitors of Petkovich — Patriot Leaguers Navy and Colgate, as well as Division I Vermont and a bunch of D-II and D-III schools — but Lafayette, which was 9-21 overall a year ago, 3-11 in the Patriot League, but is already 5-2 this season, was always his No. 1 choice and, like he did to get more playing time at Bullis, he worked hard to make it happen.

‘‘He must have taken those practice tests 7-8 times,” said Kelley. ‘‘I mean, how many kids do that? A lot of kids talk about wanting that, but they don’t do what they need to do. He did. I think I’m more proud of him for that than anything.”