Jeebus: IU punishes itself for extra recruiting call

  • 02/25/2009 2:20 am in

I should really be asleep right now, but I just checked my e-mail on my phone quick and Jerod over at Midwest Sports Fan dropped this in my inbox: the Indy Star is reporting the basketball staff made one phone call too many to Bawa Muniru during a week in October. When the violation was discovered, IU punished itself by not making calls for a week in December.

Let’s go to the details:

According to the report, when assistant coach Roshown McLeod left a voice mail for Muniru on Oct. 25, it was the school’s third call to him in a week — exceeding the NCAA limit by one.

Coach Tom Crean, who normally makes one call per week to recruits, placed two to Muniru — the Sunday and Wednesday before McLeod’s call on a Saturday.

The report said Crean “simply made a mistake,” thinking his Sunday call had counted against the previous week’s allotment. The athletic department’s compliance department discovered the violation.

On the surface, not the hugest deal. As we all know, schools report minor, secondary violations like this all the time. It happens.

But, considering Kelvin Sampson’s past transgressions, this is about the worst secondary violation Tom Crean and his staff could have picked up in his first year at the helm, as far as a PR standpoint in concerned.

Again, this is nothing more than a minor mistake, one that IU was right to self-report. We’ll survive. But man, I’d feel far better right now if it was something that had absolutely nothing to do with a phone.

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