N. Collegiate's Wright Recruited Illegally By Harvard?

[triswykes]

I'm sure some will disagree, but given the troubles the N.Y. Times has had in recent years, I have to think this info was quadruple-checked before they ran it.

Here's the story (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/sports/ncaabasketball/02harvard.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print).

[triswykes]

More stories on this mess (http://www.newstin.co.uk/sim/uk/45200707/en-010-000874181). Boy, is Harvard taking a public-relations beating over this. And trust me, their hoops players will be hearing about it in every arena they enter next season.

I particularly got a chuckle out of this Yahoo.com column (http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/news;_ylt=AoO2xa6ZMcpXXx1PaVBirzfevbYF?slug=dw-harvardscandal030208&prov=yhoo&type=lgns). Tark the Shark to coach at Harvard?!

[triswykes]

Article calls into question Harvard recruiting, admissions
3 March, 2008
by Jake Wilson
In Sunday’s New York Times, Pete Thamel alleges that Tommy Amaker and his staff at Harvard have committed
multiple violations of NCAA regulations on contact with recruits and their families. Thamel also charged that Harvard
has significantly lowered its admissions requirements for men’s basketball players under Amaker from those of his
predecessor, Frank Sullivan — potentially to the point that the league’s Academic Index has been compromised.
According to the article, the month prior to joining Amaker’s staff, Harvard assistant Kenny Blakeney played
basketball with prospects Keith Wright and Max Kenyi in Norfolk, VA, and Washington, DC, respectively. Blakeney
had not yet signed his employment contract with Harvard, however, the NCAA’s definition of a “representative of the
institution’s athletic interests” includes anyone known to the institution’s administration to “be assisting or to have
been requested (by the athletics department staff) to assist in the recruitment of prospective student-athletes.”
Additionally, Amaker reportedly encountered the father of future Penn recruit Zack Rosen in a Trenton, NJ,
supermarket in July, and discussed his son’s recruitment by Harvard. NCAA regulations require that, in such
unplanned meetings, “the staff member or athletics representative does not engage in any dialogue in excess of a
greeting and takes appropriate steps to immediately terminate the encounter.”
The allegations of lowered admissions requirements center around three recruits who Thamel claims are “well below
index levels that the previous staff members said they had adhered to.” Kenyi and Wright reportedly already have
received likely letters and are therefore almost certain to be granted admission in April. However, Frank Ben-Eze
reportedly is below the Academic Index minimum of 171 and therefore is yet to receive a likely letter.
Slant: Having these sorts of allegations on the front page of the New York Times Sunday sports page is a definite
black eye for Harvard and the Ivy League. The timing also is unfortunate, distracting from Cornell clinching the Ivy
League title and becoming the first school to claim an NCAA Tournament bid this March.
The central issue here is the question of whether Harvard has broken the rules either with its recruitment of prospects
or its admissions process. Nowhere in Thamel’s piece does the word “cheat” appear, but it’s all over the articles and
blog postings that have come out in response to this. So has Harvard really cheated?
As far as the alleged recruiting violations are concerned, the evidence is damning. To buy the explanation that
Blakeney didn’t know he would be joining the Harvard staff weeks later when he played basketball with prospects
requires an unreasonable suspension of disbelief. The story makes for sensational copy, mostly because it happened in
the Ivy League. As journalists who cover big-time college basketball can tell you, the idea of having a future member
of a staff get a jumpstart on recruiting prior to going on the payroll didn’t originate with Tommy Amaker. Whether
this rises to the level of an NCAA infraction will be a question for that body to decide.
Regardless of the circumstances of the serendipitous encounter with the Rosens in ShopRite, Amaker knows better
than to discuss recruiting in that situation. Harvard athletic director Robert Scalise claims that in November he
discussed with Amaker “three or four” complaints of incidents on the recruiting trail, calling this “a teaching
moment.” But does a man with 10 years of experience as a Division I head coach at Seton Hall and Michigan and
another nine years of experience as an assistant at Duke really need instruction on NCAA recruiting regulations? It
would be understandable if Amaker’s staff of ACC alumni had stumbled over some of the unique strictures placed on
them by the Ivy League, but these are universal NCAA rules. Amaker should be the one conducting the rules seminar.
So, yes, based on the facts as put forward in the article, Amaker and his staff do appear to have operated outside the
Basketball U. » Blog Archive » Article calls into question Harvard recruiting, admissions 3/3/08 6:50 PM
http://ivy.basketball-u.com/?p=841 Page 2 of 3
rules in at least two instances on the recruiting trail. However, given the more sordid recruiting violations out there in
major college hoops, these potential infractions seem relatively mild.
Then there’s the matter of whether Harvard has broken Ivy League rules with regard to admissions and the Academic
Index, as has been talked about on Ivy League back channels all season. This is considerably more difficult to figure
out, because it involves information that is not public. The question of admitting student-athletes under the AI floor
won’t really be answered until April when admissions decisions go out.
This spring — like every other spring — Harvard will submit its report of admitted student-athletes to the league
office for examination by the league administrators and other schools. If any admitted student-athletes failed to meet
the minimum AI threshold, it will then be completely transparent within the league. Now, traditionally in these rare
cases, the offending school is given the chance to justify breaching the AI agreement and the other schools decide
whether or not to accept that rationale. In this case, however, it is understood that under no circumstances will Harvard
be admitting anyone below the AI floor. Assuming this turns out to be correct, there are no grounds for accusations of
cheating with regard to admissions decisions.
In the event there is no scandal with admissions, the only possible breach of league rules that could have taken place
would be if prospects received likely letters at a time when they were inadmissible due to a sub-minimum AI. Thamel
claims in his article that Ben-Eze has yet to receive a likely letter, so we know this has not occurred at this time with
him. According to the Times piece, Kenyi and Wright have received their likely letters, so as long as they had such
scores when their likely letters were sent out, there’s nothing untoward going on here either.
Therefore, we don’t know if Harvard has violated the spirit or letter of the law of the Ivy League agreement, though at
this point it appears unlikely. We’ll have to wait for the school’s report to the league office later this spring to put
these academic questions to bed. Now if it turns out that Harvard has, in fact, violated the terms of the AI agreement
by accepting student-athletes below the agreed-upon minimum or giving a likely letter to a prospect at a time when he
is below the AI minimum, then this is a major scandal in the world of Ivy League men’s basketball and needs to be
investigated and addressed.
Provided Harvard is continuing to abide by the rules of the Academic Index minimums and institutional averages, and
as long as likely letters were sent only to prospects over the Academic Index floor, all the school has done is prioritize
men’s basketball like some of its Ivy League counterparts have been doing for years. Even if the article’s charge of
lowered admissions standards is accurate, these standards still would be in line with those in place at all Ivy League
schools, so any complaints by other schools’ coaching staffs would ring hollow. This might very well be a case of
pettiness on the part of other schools that are simply upset about Harvard shaking up the status quo.
In terms of the impact on this year’s recruiting class, Kenyi and Wright have their likely letters, therefore they should
be admitted. Additionally, it can be assumed that Ben-Eze will be offered admission if and only if he raises his AI to
at least 171. Harvard might open itself to criticism for attempting to get Ben-Eze academically qualified this late in
the process when other schools would have given up long ago. However, this is a two-way street, and if Ben-Eze
wants to stay committed and try to gain admission, you can not blame Amaker and his staff for sticking with him.
It’s these three student-athletes who are going to end up being the victims here, having their academic qualifications
called into question in the nation’s most prominent newspaper and being linked to articles alleging impropriety.
Normally, Ivy coaches encourage committed prospects to wait until they have been admitted or at least received a
likely letter to announce their decisions, but in the case of Ben-Eze and possibly Kenyi, an announcement was made
before the prospect had reached the AI floor. This succeeded in generating some buzz nationally for the program, but
ultimately it could result in a situation where a prospect fails to gain admission and has to de-commit and re-open his
recruitment late in the game, when his other scholarship options are gone and most schools will have filled all their
available scholarships.
In the end, whatever positive attention the program received from recruiting websites this winter is going to get buried
under the mountain of bad press this Times piece has generated, with everyone from Jerry Tarkanian to the Rutgers
student paper taking potshots at Harvard over this. Between that and the embarrassment suffered by the prospects,
it’s a sad day for Harvard basketball, the Ivy League, and everyone involved.

[triswykes]

The Boston Globe jumps in with this article on the Harvard saga (http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/mens_basketball/articles/2008/03/06/investigation_a_rarity_in_ivy_league?mode=PF)...

[triswykes]

Want to know what Mr. Wright's fellow students are likely to think of him and the basketball team when he gets to Harvard? Click here (http://www.thecrimson.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ref=522361).

[triswykes]

Interesting news on the Harvard basketball front from Jake Wilson over at basketball-u (http://ivy.basketball-u.com/):
Scout.com reports Frank Ben-Eze of Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Virginia, has rescinded his commitment to Harvard and will be re-opening his commitment. The 6-11 Nigerian center made a splash when he committed to Tommy Amaker’s program back in October over offers from ACC and Big East teams. More recently he found himself in the middle of a New York Times story concerning allegations of recruiting improprieties and lowered admissions standards at the school.

[triswykes]

Harvard is now apparently claiming it hasn't actually admitted the basketball players at the center of its alleged recruiting scandal. Bet that makes the players and their parents happy.

Read all about it in this Washington Post blast (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/10/AR2008031002189_pf.html)by noted hoops author John Feinstein.

[hard2guard]

I'm sure some will disagree, but given the troubles the N.Y. Times has had in recent years, I have to think this info was quadruple-checked before they ran it.

Here's the story (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/sports/ncaabasketball/02harvard.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print).

The story concerning Wright and Harvard is not totally accurate. Blakeney did come to VA but was invited by a long time friend that conducted the practice. On his way to North Carolina to visit some friends, he stopped in to see another, which he wanted to play ball while he was here. It wasn't an official practice but during that instance there were more athletes in the gym as well as Wright. They also had the grades as Wright. That's when they were introduced and exchanged numbers. His comments were "if I get on staff with a school I will look you up, keep working on your game and hopefully it will pay off for you somewhere." He exchanged numbers with other players as well. Apparently they didn't check into it as thorough as they should have.

Sorry for the late response:)