In case you haven’t heard about it yet — I mean, you should have, because there wasn’t anything else important going on in the news last night, was there? — Indiana has had two of their incoming freshmen suspended by the NCAA for the first nine games of the season.
Peter Jurkin and Hanner Mosquera-Perea won’t be allowed to suit up for the Hoosiers until a Dec. 15th game against Butler, and Jurkin must repay $250 and Perea $1,588.69 to a charity of their choosing. It’s a pretty stiff punishment, and it all stems from $185 that was spent more than two decades ago.
Mark Adams was the AAU coach for both players and, at one point, had attempted to become Perea’s legal guardian. The nature of their relationship would have allowed Adams to legally, in the eyes of the NCAA, spend the almost-$15,000 on things like lap tops, cell phones, meals and housing that make up the illegal benefits the NCAA has busted Jurkin and Perea with. But between 1986 and 1992, Adams’ ex-wife donated $185 — never more than $30 at once — in order to get an alumni sticker to put on her car. He’s permanently and forever considered a ‘booster’ for the school.
Seriously.
I’m not kidding.
The ex-wife of an AAU coach cost two players nine games and almost $2,000 in charity payments all for $185 that was spent on stickers before they were even born.
And you wonder why no one in their right mind trusts a decision that the NCAA makes.
The common theory being tossed around is that this is the NCAA reaching out and smacking IU for their association with Adams. You see, Adams runs a foundation called A-HOPE — African Hoop Opportunities Providing an Education — that brings players from abroad to the United States to help them get an education and find a place to play college basketball. But, as was exposed in this ESPN investigation last April, there is plenty of smoke and all kinds of rumors floating around basketball circles about Adams’ relationship with IU and whether or not it is too close.
But that theory doesn’t exactly hold water.
If message board fodder is all that it took to get a player suspended, Shabazz Muhammad would never play college basketball. Kyle Anderson wouldn’t, either. Anthony Davis probably would have been one of a handful of Kentucky recruits that went the way of Enes Kanter. Baylor would never get an elite prospect eligible and the Canada-Findlay Prep-Texas pipeline would have been shut down a long time ago.
Could it simply be that the NCAA was actually able to find some kind of wrongdoing, even if that wrongdoing is one of the most ridiculous, letter-of-the-law interpretations that the NCAA has ever come up with?
“There’s no question they’re contributors in this program right away, but the bigger concern right now is for both Hanner and Peter individually,” Indiana coach Tom Crean told SiriusXM’s Jeff Goodman on Tuesday night. “They don’t really know why this is happening and it’s really hard for us to explain it to them because I don’t really know why this is happening.”
Well, it’s simple, Tom. The NCAA doesn’t like your affiliation with Adams or A-HOPE, and they wanted to send a message about it. Since they couldn’t find anything illegal about the recruitment of the players, they are dropping the hammer on a technicality. They are trying to make a statement.
And they did. The irony, however, is that the ‘statement’ the NCAA made has more to do with the inept, archaic rules we’ve all come to know and abhor than with the two Hoosier freshmen.
Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @robdauster.
