Confusion of college basketball recruiting

Tag : Seaweed Paper

I am still not exactly sure what goes on in college basketball recruiting. I think that people who do college basketball recruiting don't even know what goes on incollege basketball recruiting. I suspect that it is very, veryslimy. You know when you accidentally hold on to the release buttonon your fishing pole for too long and the hook goes slammingstraight down into the edge of the river and you drag it out alongwith 17 pounds of seaweed? Pretty sure that's still big-timecollege basketball recruiting. Except with extra sludge and maybe apiranha on the hook that flies out and bites you on the eyeball.
I am referring, at least in part, to the case of Reggie Moore, thepoint guard from Seattle who notified the Fresno State coachingstaff just before June 1 that he wanted out of his letter of intentto play for the Bulldogs. Moore was the supposed prize of afour-player freshmen recruiting class for Fresno State. He wasrated the 34th-best point guard in the nation for the class of 2008by someone who is probably never seen Reggie Moore in person. My column about the ordeal ran in Wednesday's paper, where I lamented abouthow this was the last thing Steve Cleveland's program needed rightnow. It's already dealing with unfair NCAA sanctions* and DwightO'Neil's domestic disagreement** and Bryan Harvey's unsure statusand the fact that if Harvey doesn't make next year's squad, thatleaves exactly one senior (O'Neil) and one junior (Sylvester Seay)on scholarship. That could change if Cleveland signs a juniorcollege transfer with one of his two remaining scholarships, butyou get the point. It is not good to enter a season where yourentire roster has exactly 60 starts*** at any level of collegebasketball. (Three asterisks in one paragraph could be a new worldrecord. Let's get to them.)
*I could go on for many days about the stupidity of NCAA rules andpenalties, but this example is perfect. Fresno State is losing fourhours of practice time per week and one scholarship next seasonbecause it's APR (Academic Progress Rate) score wasn't high enoughfor the '06-'07 season. But the NCAA takes that scholarship awayfrom the average number of scholarships a program has used over thelast four seasons, as to equally penalize universities who don'tfund the same number of scholarships. In other words, reducing aschool's total number of available scholarships from 13 to 12,doesn't hurt much if it only funds 10 anyway. But since FresnoState had been penalized so much in the past for various othertransgressions, it had only averaged 11 scholarships the last fourseasons, so it's total number of scholarships for next season wasreduced from 11 to 10, even though it had planned to finally havethe full allotment of 13. You could of course argue that if it hadstayed out of trouble in the first place, Fresno State wouldn't bein this situation. Sure. But you absolutely, positively, without adoubt, have to see that the Bulldogs were double-penalized for oldviolations. That's just wrong. So Fresno State appealed and lost.The NCAA couldn't see past a technicality, apparently. Theexcruciating part is that the team might not have gotten penalizedat all had the APR score simply been an improvement on the yearbefore. (The NCAA gives a reprieve for APR improvement, even ifit's still a sub-standard score. Just ask the Fresno State softballteam.) So if the '05-'06 Fresno State men's basketball APR scorehad simply been a little worse, Fresno State might have 13scholarships. Instead, it has 10. Go figure that one out and trynot to put your head through a double-pane window. On a brightnote, though, the Bulldogs don't have to practice as much.
**It is a simple case of he-said, she-said. O'Neil said she's astalker. She said she needs a restraining order. This blog does nottake sides, but reminds everyone out there to date wisely. Becausesomeday, you might find yourself with a broken universal remote,some dead goldfish and a matching brown microfiber couch and chairyou didn't want in the first place because it wasn't evencomfortable. The blog is just saying.
***A quick breakdown: O'Neil started 39 games, all at Fresno State,seven his freshman year ('04-'05), 20 his sophomore year ('05-'06)and 12 last year ('07-'08) when he was out a lot of the season witha broken wrist. Nedeljko Golubovic started nine games last seasonas a freshman for Fresno State. Seay started 12 games at ArizonaState, 11 as a freshman ('05-'06) and one as a sophomore ('06-'07)before transferring to Fresno. So yeah, that's 39 ... plus 9 ...plus 12 ... carry the 1 ... yeah, that's 60 total starts for aroster. Even if you assume Harvey is going to be back (thinkacademic and attitude issues), that still only adds the 12 gamesHarvey started last year before becoming ineligible. Harvey didplay in 18 games as a freshman for Louisville, but never started.Again, Fresno State has two scholarships to give, but that's wherethe Bulldogs stand now.
Not to re-hash the entire column* but there are a few theories onwhat happened to Moore. No one backs out on a full ride scholarshipthis late without another plan of some sort. You hope there wouldbe enough people involved in a young man's life to keep that fromhappening. Parents. High school coaches. AAU coaches. Guardians.Siblings. Someone. There is always a chance that Moore reallydoesn't have a plan and just decided one day in late May that hehates Fresno, or is too good for Fresno State, and is now hopingagainst hope that not only will Coach Steve Cleveland give him arelease, but that some Pac-10 school has been saving him ascholarship all this time. Chances are much greater that somecollege coach has convinced Moore to go to a prep school next year,and will give him a scholarship for the '09-'10 season. Or thecoach has told Moore's AAU coach to tell Moore that's what heshould do. Either way, it's unethical. It would be --- yes, we cansay it -- dirty dirty dirty shennanigans. Only nasty bottom-feedingpond scum would mess with another school's signee, but it happens.There is plenty of scum out there. We'll see if Clevelandultimately does Moore an enormous favor and releases him, and we'llalso see where Moore ends up and wonder to ourselves how theconnection was truly made.
*I've been told that knowing a little information behind the columnis interesting, so this blog is going to try to do an entry fornearly every column from now on. There really isn't too much insideinformation behind the Moore column, I just called a couple sourceswho also wished they knew the entire truth, but agreed that thereseems to be more to Moore's decision than simply not being excitedabout Fresno State. It would be safe to say that the Bulldogscoaching staff is more than displeased with Moore's lack of loyaltyand consideration for a program that offered him a scholarship backwhen not that many schools were doing so.
On one last side note of college basketball shadiness, we shouldnote that Ray Lopes is back in college coaching. The former FresnoState head coach and former Oklahoma assistant was hired in June asan assistant at Idaho, which absolutely makes no sense since theVandals are also in the Western Athletic Conference, the leaguewhere Lopes was fired for committing NCAA violations. So Idahocan't claim to have been unaware if it all goes bad later, which iteasily could. You might recall Lopes did the same stuff atOklahoma, as did Kelvin Sampson, who went on to Indiana and -- whatdo ya know? -- same thing, more cheating. If I were a sportsreporter in Idaho, I would already be filling out that publicinformation request for Idaho's men's basketball phone records.
A few months ago, I made a call to the Idaho Stampede, theDevelopmental League team where Lopes was an assistant. I justwanted to see what he was up to, or if he wanted to explain howhe'd been wrong, or if he wanted to make any gut-wrenchingapologies to college basketball fans everywhere. Hey, I figured itwas worth a shot. He doesn't know me. We'd never spoken. He'dalready been fired by the time I got to Fresno. I hadn't writtenanything overly critical. OK, it was a long shot, especially sinceI'd already left him messages a couple times. This time, though, Icaught him in the office and the secretary said she would see if hewas available. She came back with a far darker tone, said he wasn'tavailable and then started to hang up before I could give her mynumber. After I stopped her and she took my number, I saidsomething like, "So, you think he's really going to call?" Withoutpausing, she said, "I wouldn't count on it." Never heard a word.