Thursday, March 26, 2009

OK, maybe a little more college basketball

One can't avoid the UConn story right now on the cusp of their participation in their Sweet 16 game. If you've been out of the country and/or secluded from the conveniences of 21st century technology, here's what you missed: it was reported by multiple media outlets, but broken by Yahoo!, that the University of Connecticut's men's basketball program allegedly committed recruiting violations in their pursuit of former player Nate Miles. Supposedly UConn wined him and dined him so to speak, and contacted him way more than NCAA rules allow. Now the NCAA will formally investigate and the violations have been called potentially major.

Now then, what to make of all this information? To be honest, I would be surprised if at the end of the day UConn got more than a slap on the wrist. By that I mean they will probably not have wins vacated, Calhoun's not losing his job, etc. Furthermore, there have been recruiting scandals in the past (ex: Indiana/Oklahoma/Kelvin Sampson, Michigan), and even then, I wouldn't call the penalties overly severe. I've seen some people on the internet defend UConn because "everyone else is doing it," which doesn't make it right. They don't deserve to be defended if they did, in fact, violate NCAA rules, but I can't imagine very much will come of this except for bad press and the aforementioned slap on the wrist.

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