The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Coaches say corruption limited mainly to top programs
AVON — The seven Division I men’s college basketball coaches in Connecticut run widely disparate programs with different goals, competition levels and recruiting targets.
Each one of them, however, agree that while the NCAA must find solutions to the problems uncovered in the FBI’s investigation into corruption in the sport, their programs haven’t been — or won’t be — affected. Rather, it’s a problem at the very highest levels of college basketball — the 1 percent, if you will.
At the second annual coaches’ tip-off breakfast, hosted by ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg at The Golf Club of Avon, all seven coaches were asked about the scandal that’s rocked the college hoops world for the past year.
“I was in shock,” Sacred Heart coach Anthony Latina said of his reaction when the FBI probe was first announced on Sept. 26, 2017. “I was like, ‘Why does the FBI care about college basketball?’ There are so few schools involved with that, a very small percentage of college basketball, I think. It’s not something I’ve ever dealt with.”
James Jones, entering his 20th season as head coach at Yale, concurred.
“I slept like a baby that night,” he said, referring to the day the federal government announced that it had the “playbook” that sneaker companies, agents, runners and college coaches use for illicit recruiting. “If someone said to me, ‘Coach, do you have $50,000 for me?’ That would be kind of funny to me.”
Coaches like Latina, Jones, Fairfield’s Sydney Johnson, Hartford’s John Gallagher, Quinnipiac’s Baker Dunleavy and Central Connecticut’s Donyell Marshall operate in a
different recruiting world than the Dukes and North Carolinas. Johnson remembered when the news first broke last year.
“One of my assistants called me and said, ‘Coach, I’m so glad I’m at Fairfield,’” Johnson said. “Obviously, there’s something going on at the elite level.”
Dan Hurley was in the same waters the past eight years (two at Wagner, six at Rhode Island). Now in his first season at UConn, he’s going up against the Power 5 schools for four-and fivestar recruits. He figured it would be a lot “dirtier,” and assumed he’d have to have some uncomfortable conversations with people looking for money. So far, however, he hasn’t experienced any of that, and Hurley figures a lot has to do with his family name and the respect it has garnered in the basketball world over the years, thanks largely to his father, Bob, a Hall of Fame high school coach, and brother Bobby, a former Duke All-American now coaching Arizona State.
“I think what insulates me is my background, who my dad is,” Hurley noted. “And, I don’t think I’m the most approachable person with that type of thing, either. If you pay a kid, I don’t understand how you can coach them. You’re setting a (bad) standard for them to live their life, if you pay them.”
Gallagher noted that Mark Few, head coach at Gonzaga, called him recently and told him, “For the last five years, I’ve tried to recruit these players and couldn’t get them. I now know why.”