Hoopraker

Like hyenas lurking near the bounty of a lion, the Tigers are circling Bloomington. By all indications, Indiana recruit Devin Ebanks (Queens, NY/Thomas More (CT)) and one of the most highly regarded players in the country won’t wait for IU to name a new permanent coach and will instead re-open his recruitment. Still, Ebanks has yet to be formally released from his National Letter of Intent to IU. Such formalities are apparently but a minor detail to John Calipari’s Memphis Tigers.

Memphis Reaches Out To Ebanks

According to reliable reports out of New York and confirmed by Ebanks’ coach at St. Thomas More, Jere Quinn, Memphis is actively courting Ebanks. Quinn also confirmed he’ll be meeting with Ebanks and Ebanks’ “AAU people,” including Lawrence McGugins, the head of Team Takeover, this week. “We’re going to try and make a quick assessment of what they’re trying to do,” Quinn said. “We’re hoping to get together soon. Memphis has contacted us,” Quinn said. “I know they’ve contacted his [Ebanks’] AAU people.”

Aside from the underbelly of college recruitment as conducted in the shadows by surrogates to teenage prodigies like Ebanks, it’s clear an issue has arisen. According to most reports, IU hasn’t formally released Ebanks from his National Letter of Intent nor has Ebanks formally requested such release as required by the NCAA. The rules are clear. Under NCAA regulations, and as reiterated in the explicit terms of NLI, there can be no further recruitment of a individual player once the NLI is signed. If the report referenced above is indeed accurate, Memphis, through its overt courtship of a committed IU recruit, (ed. n.b., and any other school that contact Ebanks before he is released) appears to have violated the spirit if not the letter of the NLI.

NLI Article 9 - Recruiting Ban After Signing

I understand all participating conferences and institutions are obligated to respect my signing and shall cease to recruit me upon my signing this NLI. I shall notify any recruiter who contacts me that I have signed an NLI. Once I enroll in the institution named in this document, the NLI Recruiting Ban is no longer in effect, and I shall be governed by applicable NCAA recruiting bylaws.”

Simply put, if Ebanks hasn’t been released, he can’t be recruited.

That Side Agreement

Rumors persist that Ebanks negotiated a special provision in his NLI that gave him the special option of terminating his commitment if Sampson was terminated. While it may be possible for Ebanks to have negotiated an agreement with Indiana in the wake of the initial disclosure of the allegations of Sampson’s misconduct which modified the standard terms of NLI Article 19 (that coaching changes won’t invalidate the NLI), such side agreement would not obviate the non-recruitment ban.

In any event, the NLI provides, to all recruits, the ability to rescind the NLI if the NCAA or the University determines rules of recruitment were violated in the recruitment of the player. Such right would belong to Ebanks if IU or the NCAA concluded Sampson violated NCAA rules in his recruitment.

NLI Article 7(f) - Recruiting Rules Violation.

If the institution (or a representative of its athletics interests) named in this document violated NCAA or conference rules while recruiting me (as found through the NCAA or conference enforcement process or acknowledged by the institution), this NLI shall be declared null and void if the violation results in my need for eligibility reinstatement by the NCAA student-athlete reinstatement staff.

Whether the NLI or a special agreement with IU controls Ebanks’ commitment, since IU has yet to release Ebanks, under non-recruitment ban of NLI Article 9 an overzealous, looking for a leg up on potential suitors of a released Ebanks, Memphis program finds itself knee deep in the recruiting muck.

Recruiting the Prima Dona

Regardless of the outcome of Ebanks’ recruitment, it’s likely he intends to be on a college campus, wherever it may be, for a mere six months. In that respect, the inherent risks to recruiting the one and doners like Ebanks become more evident. And in the end, how many of them are worth the trouble? With Ebanks’ loyalty to IU nothing more than vapor, it’s readily apparent all the one and doners are looking for is a college coach and program to use as an enablement device for their immediate NBA aspirations.

As Bruce Weber and Mike Davis should have learned from the ill-fated recruitments of Eric Gordon and Josh Smith respectively (a heralded 2004 class that also included DJ White, AJ Ratliff, Robert Vaden and James Hardy) recruiting one and doners may be an expedient device to placate the short term memories of the fan base but you set yourself up for a steep fall.

In the end, after using the program to audition for scouts, the one and doners are gone and program continuity suffers. Unless they lead their school to a National Championship, something few of them achieve in one year, their contribution to the long term stability to the program is ephemeral.

DJ Elsass contributed to this article.

Posted by TD Lawlor on Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 11:30 am.