Thursday, June 9, 2011

UPDATE: Hanner Parea responds to the ESPN article on the Indiana Elite and A-HOPE

In a spring that has been filled to the brim with controversies on the college gridiron -- Ohio State, anyone? -- the big news on the hardwood came in the form of a five-month investigation by ESPN into the relationship between Indiana University and the Indiana Elite AAU program, which is associated with the A-HOPE Foundation run by Mark Adams.

Now, there was a bit of controversy when the article first ran in late May about what, exactly, it meant. There wasn't much in the article that put Indiana in a bad light. The piece did, however, paint Adams, his son Drew, and Indiana Elite founder Mike Barnett in a bad light. We can argue back and forth all day about whether the A-HOPE Foundation is credible and legitimate and whether or not the pipeline that the Hoosiers had established was legal.

But we can probably all agree that the most concerning piece of information that was dug up involved 2012 recruit Hanner Parea. A native of Colombia, Parea played for the Indiana Elite, but had trips home paid for and received hand-me-down iPods and lap-tops.

By the letter of the law, that is an NCAA violation.

Parea spoke to Kyle Neddenriep of the Indy Star about the article.

"I read it," he told the paper. "I didn't know somebody was doing a story like that. Not everything they said is true so I’m not going to worry about it. I haven't done anything wrong."

"I'm just going to keep playing and doing what I'm doing. In the end, everyone will know what is true. When I first saw it, it bothered me but I just have keep moving ahead."

UPDATE: Parea also spoke to the Herald-Times:

"People said they are trying to make me go to IU," Perea said. "I picked IU because that's where I feel good. I feel that I'm going to be in a nice place with good people around me. That's why I picked IU. … They never tried to push me. The first thing they told me was I could go anywhere I want. I like IU. I've been around IU a lot, so that’s why I picked them."

"I don't really care because I know all of that stuff isn't true," Perea said. "I'm not worried about it."

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