Otto Porter, Frank Haith's violaton, and a reporter mistake?

Missouri's new head coach Frank Haith has not had the greatest start to his tenure.

This afternoon, less than two weeks after he was named Mike Anderson's successor, Haith lost Otto Porter, a top 100 recruit in the class of 2011 and a Missouri native, to Georgetown. Losing an in-state star likely won't ingratiate Haith with the good folks of the Show Me state, who were displeased with his hiring. To top it off, Haith committed a secondary violation in the process.

Haith responded to a text message from Mike DeArmond of the Kansas City Star that asked if Porter was still in play for Mizzou by saying "No, he did go to Georgetown". He followed that up with another text saying "Did speak by phone and the process was all but over. (He) just needed to see Georgetown, which they visited this weekend."


The problem?

Coaches are not allowed to talk about recruits until they have signed a National Letter of Intent. That is a violation, one that every Division I coach is keenly aware of. Its only a secondary violation, and will likely result in nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Now, Haith should not be discussing kids that he is recruiting. There is no way that he is not aware that this is a violation. That said, DeArmond should shoulder his load of the blame. Coaches text and talk about recruits all the time. Its not a rare occurrence. The issue is that he is on the record talking about it.

DeArmond writes on the Campus Corner blog, which is where the KC Star's coverage of colleges and recruiting can be found. He should have been aware of the fact that by publishing Haith's name he would be getting Missouri into trouble with the NCAA. I'm going to assume that there was a miscommunication about whether the text was meant to be on the record, because I truly doubt that Haith would have sent that text if he had known his name would have been published.

DeArmond just cost himself all of his Missouri sources. Proof?

This isn't the first time that the media covering Missouri has been in the news.

Bernie Miklasz, an excellent reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, wrote that Matt Painter was going to go to Missouri, which ended up being incorrect. To his credit, he owned the mistake gracefully.

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Otto Porter is a great get for Georgetown. Along with DeAndre Daniels, he is one of the two best players that had remained uncommitted in the class of 2011.

Georgetown now has one of the best incoming classes in the country, which includes 6'9" Tyler Adams, 6'9" Greg Whittington, 6'8" Mikael Hopkins, and 6'5" Jabril Trawick in addition to the 6'8" Porter. Porter had an official visit lined up with Kansas for next weekend, but he will not be making that trip.

Of note for Hoya fans -- Georgetown will have at least one scholarship player transferring out of the program. Porter is their 14th scholarship player.