Jeff Borzello has been doing a terrific job in his inaugural season as CBSSports' recruiting guru.
Mini-scoop, we'll call him.
He also may have inadvertently broke his first NCAA recruiting violation story. Take a look at this excerpt from a recent blog he published on five-star recruit Alex Poythress:
On Tuesday night, after the AAU Super Showcase, the 6-foot-7 Northeast (Tenn.) forward picked up an offer from Duke and head coach Mike Krzyzewski.We bolded the key sentence.
“It felt pretty good,” Poythress said Thursday morning. “It was pretty exciting to talk to Coach K. He said he saw me play at the Super Showcase and Peach Jam, and he liked what he saw.”
You see, the July recruiting period is an evaluation period. Coaches are not supposed to be figuring out who they think can play at their level and fit into their system. They are not supposed to be contacting or speaking to recruits that are playing in tournaments. The hangup, however, was that the Georgia Stars' team that Poythress plays for was eliminated from the Super Showcase in Orlando on Tuesday and played in the ESPNU exhibition that night. According to Brian Snow of Scout.com, coaches can call recruits once they have been eliminated from tournament play.
John Infante of the Bylaw Blog weighed in on twitter by providing this link which says:
"The academic and membership affairs staff confirmed that after a prospect reports on call to travel with his team at the beginning of an extended road trip that occurs during the July evaluation period, it is not permissible for an institution's coaching staff member to have any type of communication with the prospect, the prospect's parents or legal guardians, the prospect's coach or any individual associated with the prospect as a result of the prospect's participation in basketball [except for telephone contact with a prospect's high-school coach (or administrator) who is not in attendance at the prospect's events] until the prospect is released by the appropriate authorities after the completion of the team's final competition of the road trip."
By that definition, Coach K is in the clear if the call came after the last competition of the road trip for the Stars. Poythress is currently competing at the Nike Global Challenge, which isn't an AAU event. So, for Duke fans, you better hope Coach K got on the horn late Tuesday night.
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4 comments:
The NCAA will deal with this soon after they vacate Duke's 1999 Final Four due to Corey Maggette's participation.
How dare you, Rob.
Coach K is a saint! Haha.
-Scott
Coach K is a saint. That shouldn't change the way the NCAA deals with this violation though. The problem is the punishment varies so much when there are minor violations. I also don't think it would ruin Duke's reputation if they had to vacate the 1999 Final Four. I'm not a Duke fan but the school and coach K probably did not know Maggette was paid in high school. Still, any other school already would have had those wins taken away.
@Joe, by any other school, you mean Calipari and Memphis... both schools were guilty but only one got punished, the hypocrisy of the NCAA is limitless (still waiting for Pryor to serve his punishment after being allowed to play in the BCS bowl)...
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