Where does Jim Calhoun find these guys? In the last few years, AJ Price, Marcus Williams, Jerome Dyson, Doug Wiggins, and Stanley Robinson have all had to miss time because of issues ranging from stolen lap tops to underage drinking to academic problems. Well, would you be surprised if I told you another UConn player is going to miss time.
UConn freshman Nate Miles was expelled from school yesterday, for an assortment of charges. From Mike Anthony of the Hartford Courant:
According to an affidavit obtained Wednesday, the alleged victim said the relationship began with consensual sex but later Miles became physical and "extremely possessive."The alleged victim, a 19 year old freshman from Manchester, CT (Miles is 20), got a restraining order against Miles, which he violated 16 minutes later by calling her.
The affidavit said the woman went to Miles' dorm room on Sept. 14, at which time he began pressuring her to have sex. When she refused, he allegedly "would tap my face or dig his nails into me." When she hit him back, he "slapped me and pushed me off the bed."
Miles has been banned from campus since the assault, but will only face criminal charges based on the restraining order violation.
This is really bad news for the Huskies. They have already lost Stanley Robinson for at least the first semester this year. The UConn admissions office has finally received the grades of international recruit Ater Majok, but he will not be eligible until at least the second semester.
So what does all this mean? UConn will have a gaping hole at small forward. Miles would have been the perfect player to fill that space. He has been described as a Caron Butler type scorer with a jumper similar to Rip Hamilton's. He would have been the first legitimate scoring option UConn has had on the wing since Dehnam Brown graduated, and a great compliment to the AJ Price/Kemba Walker and Jeff Adrien/Hasheem Thabeet tandem.
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2 comments:
nothing new over at U CON
Jim Calhoun runs a morally bankrupt program at Storrs and continually brings in players without any consideration as to what type of people they are as long as they can jump and put the ball in the hoop.
This dude is a 20 year old freshman? I was 20 years old my junior year! The dude has been at school for no more than 2 months and already he's following in the illustrious footsteps of his heroes marcus williams and aj price.
How long until Conn seriously starts resembling the old Huggins- Cincinnati teams as Calhoun completely lets go of the reigns?
Well what about Caron Butler? The Huskies took a chance on him (he easily had the worst rap sheet pre-UConn) and it paid off pretty nicely and Butler has actually turned out to be a pretty good person. Calhoun likes to give kids a second chance, and a lot of times it turns out well for him and well for the kids. It just so happens that in the last few years, some of these kids have made some stupid mistakes.
Bottom line is this: these are 18, 19, 20 year old kids that come into this (and every) program. Even if they have had some trouble in the past, do they deserve a second chance? Yes. Does Calhoun need to be (much) more selective about the players that he brings into UConn over the next few years? Yes. But remember, this is also the school that produced Ray Allen (who negotiates his own contracts in the NBA), Emeka Okafor (graduated in three years), Ben Gordon, and a slew of other guys that turned out to be good pros and good people. His last few recruiting classes have had some bad apples, but don't throw him into the Jerry Tarkanian/Bob Huggins clubhouse yet.
Miles is done at UConn, but I can guarantee that he will land somewhere. He is moving to Texas once his legal troubles are sorted out, I'm willing to bet anyone he ends up averaging double digits in the Big XII before all is said and done.
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