Resurrecting the Blog

I'm baaaaaaack....

What has inspired me, after a nearly year-long layoff, to resurrect this blog today? This story, from Yahoo! Sports' Dan Wetzel and Adrian Wojnarowski, which alleges that the University of Connecticut may have violated NCAA recruiting rules in the process of recruiting former Husky Nate Miles, now enrolled at the College of Southern Idaho.

It's a very well-documented story with all kinds of sources, with only one or two little issues. For instance, the story alleges that

UConn may have committed major recruiting violations by exceeding NCAA limits on phone calls to Miles and those closest to him, records show. The NCAA allows a single phone call per month to a prospect or his family in a player’s junior year of high school. That limit was exceeded over several months from late 2006 into 2007. In December of 2006, for instance, Tom Moore, then a UConn assistant coach, made 27 calls to Miles’ guardian and a person Miles referred to as an uncle. Moore made three calls to Miles.

That's true, you're only allowed one phone call a month to players classified as juniors. The problem is that, over the time frame alleged in the article, Nate Miles was actually classified as a SENIOR according to the NCAA, therefore the rules governing junior recruits wouldn't have applied. Not to mention, the Kelvin Sampson rule (text message ban) didn't go into effect until August 1, 2007, after the date mentioned in the article.

So now that that's out of the way, that leaves us with former student manager turned scumbag agent Josh Nochimson. I have to be honest, his connection to the university, no matter how tenuous, is extremely troubling. With the ESPN report coming down that now Ater Majok is connected to Nochimson, I'm a little worried about what else this guy has his hands in. He's already shown he's not above stealing from clients, as he did to Rip Hamilton (stealing over $1M), what else will he do to the school which launched him to the position he occupies now?

Either way, this whole episode, from the allegations to the convenient timing to the ties to a scummy agent, just makes me feel dirty. I liked to believe (pretend?) that I cheered for a program that was above it all. Sure, we had our occasional issues (Laptopgate, the Rudy Gay recruiting, Doug Wiggins, Kirk King, etc), but nothing overarching or program-tainting. Nochimson changes all of that though. As a result, I find myself still rooting for these Huskies to win it all, but I wonder if what I've been rooting for is really what I thought it was all these years. I guess I'll never know and, like a five-year-old who still believes in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, I don't think I want to either.