Poaching UNO's roster after Katrina - Frashcilla's pissed at coaches

HardHarry · Sep 7, 2005 at 3:27 PM

A line, allegedly, has been severely crossedBy Fran Fraschilla
Special to ESPN Insider
Archive

For 26 years as a coach and an analyst, I have been privileged to be part of the "playground of life," making a living around games.

Unfortunately, the importance of sports in our country causes that playground too often to be a microcosm of our overall society, one in which times of crisis expose its sordid side much more readily. The recent events reputed to be happening with the University of New Orleans basketball program illustrates that, indeed, every playground has its bullies.

New Orleans coach Monty Towe has enough on his plate. His university's city has been destroyed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The school has cancelled its fall semester. Still, Towe is making every effort to save his team's basketball season -- even if it means playing all of their games on the road.

Towe's spirit in the face of such extreme challenges should be commended. Instead, according to Towe, he has had to spend precious time in the past week protecting his roster from poachers -- so-far nameless and completely shameless people representing other universities who have contacted his players, notably star sophomore guard Bo McCalebb (22.6 ppg last season), and tried to convince them to transfer.

Towe is no neophyte. He played at NC State for Norm Sloan, later coached with him at Florida, and also has coached at the junior college level. He knows as well as anyone that recruiting, especially in the South, has always had its seedy side (see the numerous NCAA investigations throughout the years).

In general, anyone who's coached knows that, in recruiting, you better be prepared for anything. When it comes to the procurement of talent at the Division I level, many coaches live in the "gray area." It's not typically out-and-out cheating, but rather a vigorous bending of the rules. This UNO story, though, if true, gives new meaning to the word "disgraceful" and should be looked into immediately and strongly by the NCAA and the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Already, one NABC official with whom I spoke over the weekend promised he would look into this allegedly scurrilous behavior.

Given the pressure to win at the Division I level, should we be shocked that something like this could happen? No, because the NCAA doesn't crack down hard enough on coaches who cheat. The organization has never figured out that cheating is not a victimless crime and, right now, the risk-reward ratio is favorable for a coach who cheats, while the odds are stacked against the guy who doesn't.

If a coach is caught committing serious violations of NCAA rules, he should be punished severely -- try suspensions and penalties that follow him to another school. This only happens now in rare circumstances, but needs to occur more to be a true deterrant.

My hunch, now that the anonymous word is out, is that nothing will come of the attempted poaching of Monte Towe's players. The incident, however, is a reminder that we still can't count on everyone in the college hoops world to do the right thing -- even in a time of tragedy.
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I dont think Towe is squeaky clean himself, but that's pretty damn shitty right there.

Some people think the precedent was set at Baylor, but I disagree. They lost their coach and went on probation in a scandal.

mathmajors · Sep 7, 2005 at 4:26 PM

HardHarry said:

I dont think Towe is squeaky clean himself,
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I've never heard anything about Monte. What have you heard?

TurdFerguson · Sep 13, 2005 at 11:37 AM

mathmajors said:

I've never heard anything about Monte. What have you heard?
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What did Towe do? Have an inelligible player on his roster or something??

THE GUTTER · Sep 13, 2005 at 2:56 PM

It's a shame too. I thought UNO had a change to win it all with such a talented team.

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