Associated Press
The notebook …
Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said he and the university are looking into a Yahoo! Sports report claiming the school broke NCAA rules during the recruitment of former basketball player Nate Miles, but added Miles is not at UConn and his team remains focused on the NCAA tournament.
Yahoo reported Wednesday that Miles, a 6-7 guard from Toledo, Ohio, was given lodging, transportation, meals and representation by sports agent Josh Nochimson, and a UConn assistant coach knew about the relationship between the player and the agent. The story cited interviews, documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws and other sources.
Nochimson, a former student manager for UConn, was considered a representative of UConn’s athletic interests by the NCAA and was prohibited from having contact with Miles or giving him anything of value, Yahoo reported.
Records also show that five UConn coaches called Nochimson and text-messaged him at least 1,565 times during a nearly two-year period before and after Miles’ recruitment in 2006 and early 2007. Calhoun had 16 of those communications, Yahoo reported.
Miles was expelled from UConn in October without ever playing a game for the Huskies after he was charged with violating a restraining order in a case involving a woman who claimed he assaulted her. He is now attending the College of Southern Idaho and plays for the school’s basketball team.
SOUTH TICKETS
More tickets will be made available for the NCAA Men’s Basketball South Regional games in Memphis over the weekend.
An undisclosed number of tickets will go on sale Thursday at 10 a.m. online and through the FedExForum box office for Friday’s regional games and the region title game on Sunday.
In the South Region, all four top-seeded teams are still in the running. Top-seeded North Carolina will face off against No. 4 seed Gonzaga and No. 2 seed Oklahoma will play No. 3 seed Syracuse.
None of those games will conflict with Memphis Tigers’ games in the West Region.
The NCAA will also open practice today for no cost. Single-session tickets start at $88.
VCU COACH
Virginia Commonwealth coach Anthony Grant spent Wednesday touring Alabama’s campus and meeting with university officials in a second round of talks about potentially replacing Mark Gottfried.
Grant and his wife, Christina, flew into town at about 10 a.m. CST Wednesday for interviews and a campus tour, athletics spokesman Doug Walker said. It was not immediately clear if the job was offered.
Grant also met with Alabama officials Sunday in Virginia.