KC Star piece trying to nail Huggins on recruiting last year.

[michigancat]

Basically much ado about nothing.



http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/15874688.htm

Bob Huggins U.

After he was run out of Cincinnati, Huggins gathered recruits to himself while he was unaffiliated with a school and free from NCAA rules.

By BILL REITER
The Kansas City Star

T he first hint Bob Huggins was preparing to do something extraordinary came last fall, when the just-dismissed basketball coach strolled confidently through the front door of a Cincinnati sports bar.

It was Nov. 13, less than three months after Huggins had been forced out as Cincinnati’s head coach. Fifty-two, with a gleaming scalp of slicked-back hair and penetrating blue-gray eyes, Huggins seemed to those who saw him that night his old self again — bright, funny, irascible, dry and utterly competitive. A born winner.

He moved past the glow of plasma screens and half-empty glasses of beer. As fans streamed into the bar, Huggins enjoyed a bottle of wine with his wife and a few friends. He looked at ease in black warm-ups with “Cincinnati” stitched on the front.

In about an hour, Huggins would tell 250 fans during a Q&A that he was doing well, that he wanted to coach again, that the future looked bright.

“He was as relaxed, as confident, as open and as honest as he’d ever been in the times I’d talked with him,” said Lance McAlister, a Cincinnati sports radio-show host who asked the questions that night. “It was a different side of Huggins.”

Huggins was about to turn his dismissal into a rare opportunity to recruit players and build his next basketball program without the burden of NCAA rules — becoming, in effect, a free-agent coach able to deliver a ready-to-order team to whatever school hired him. In interviews with The Kansas City Star, dozens of people — players, former players, parents, scouts, coaches and friends — said Huggins spent the next four months recruiting talent with two glaring differences from the coaches he would be competing against.

He would recruit players to play for him, not a particular school. And because Huggins was not affiliated with any school, the rules that govern coaches’ interactions with players would not apply to him. The advantage was ingenious.

“He knew he was going to get a job,” said Alex Meacham, a former Cincinnati player and a friend of Huggins’. “So he was out there doing what he could do within the rules. And he didn’t have a school, so he didn’t have any rules.”

It was a plan that would help restart Huggins’ career, potentially circumvent the NCAA’s level playing field and eventually transport one man’s program to the winning bidder. For months, he would simply be recruiting for Bob Huggins University.

“I joked, ‘In the position you’re in, could you envision yourself at a steak dinner with all the kids you’re recruiting and saying, ‘Come play for me, wherever that is.’?” McAlister recalled. “And he paused and said, ‘That’s the plan.’

“He was going to go kick some ass. He’s going to be back, and he’s going to bring a hell of a recruiting class with him.”

Sitting on a stage under a glaring spotlight in that Cincinnati bar, Huggins smirked.

•••

Bob Huggins never left success to chance.

In his 16 years as head coach, Cincinnati won 10 conference titles and eight conference tournament titles, and earned two Elite Eight appearances and a berth in the Final Four. He was a three-time Conference USA Coach of the Year.

Though often criticized for recruiting kids with problematic pasts and running a program with one of the country’s lowest graduation rates, Huggins produced winning teams. Many saw him as a coach willing to give troubled young people a second chance.

But by August 2005, university president Nancy Zimpher was winning an internal power struggle. Huggins would be gone by month’s end.

Before he stepped down on Aug. 23, Huggins had already begun assembling the team he would eventually bring to Kansas State.

“It was well-known he didn’t have the restriction of NCAA rules, that he was out lining up everybody he could,” a source who works in Big 12 athletics told The Star. “There was no question about the players that he was going to be able to deliver. Everybody in the country knew that.”

For most of his coaching career, Huggins — the son of a basketball coach — had built his own fiefdoms, first in Akron and later in Cincinnati, around relationships with talented high school players and the coaches, parents, friends, father-figures and scouts on whom they relied to make decisions or get discovered.

That would remain true as Huggins began the process of transplanting his own cabal of Cincinnati recruits.

As the pressure mounted last August, Huggins picked up the phone to call a trusted contact, old friend and high school basketball coach Rex Morgan. At the time, Morgan was coaching Jason Bennett, a 7-foot-3 top prospect at center whom Huggins hoped would follow him.

“Before he resigned, he called me and said, ‘Look, this thing has turned a different way, and I’m not going to be coaching here,’ ” Morgan said. “ ‘I understand if Jason in the meantime wants the second and third choice (school), but I’m going to get a job, and I’d like Jason to come with me.’ ”

The phone call underscored Huggins’ recruiting life over the next several months — a series of conversations with contacts aimed at shoring up the players Huggins had tracked, in some cases for years.

Huggins would employ at least two recruiting techniques, according to those interviewed by The Star. One was face-to-face contact, from dinners at recruits’ homes to trips to see them play to regular calls on their cell phones. The other approach was passing messages to players — through their coaches — that Huggins wanted them to wait and see where he landed before they committed.

Asked how he went about recruiting players when he didn’t have a job, Huggins said, “I honestly don’t remember that I did.”

Later, when presented with specific examples, Huggins said: “People have a tendency to blow things out of proportion. Did I talk to some kids? Yeah. Did I try to go out and recruit kids that I didn’t know? No. These are guys I’ve been to camps with, that I’ve known for a long time.”

Some of those players, like Bennett, would follow Huggins to K-State. Others, like highly touted forward Bill Walker, appear headed to Manhattan. Some decided to go elsewhere.

The sum of Huggins’ efforts — a potential 2007-2008 team made up of Bennett, Walker, Michael Beasley and Blake Young, among other players — could transform K-State into one of the country’s best basketball teams within a few years.

•••

The process began in Huggins’ own backyard, where he used proximity to pursue blue-chip players in the Cincinnati area.

Close to home, Huggins knew Adrion Graves, an athletic 6-4 kid from Cincinnati with three-point range and a top-20 national ranking among shooting guards.

Last fall and winter, the other coaches who recruited Graves were bound by NCAA rules, including a limit of seven recruiting contacts and only three in-person, off-campus visits during Graves’ senior year. No such restrictions applied to Huggins.

Huggins said he spoke to Graves only once.

“I recruited Adrion Graves to Cincinnati, and I talked to Graves once, and that’s when his coach put him on the phone with me,” he said.

Graves’ mother, who said the family loves Huggins, remembers things differently.

“He would come by periodically, meet him at school, talk to him, tell him everything would be all right,” said Janelle Graves. “He was at his games. He’d swing by and say hello, and say: ‘Keep your head up. I’ll be somewhere soon. Just hang in there.’ He came by once a week, and he’d talk to him a lot away from the house, too … and he’d call. He’d practice with him. He was all in his life.”

Graves signed Nov. 9 with Xavier. His mom said Huggins continued to court her son through the winter, urging him to reconsider.

His pitch, Janelle Graves said, was a simple one: “He’d say, ‘You’re an awesome player, I’d love to have you, wherever I go, because we know each other.’ Afterward, Huggins put a lot of pressure on him. He kept saying, ‘Just wait, just wait.’ ”

When Huggins took a job with Kansas State, Graves decided it was too far from home, his mom said.

“Adrion was debating, and he didn’t want to leave,” she said. “I have epilepsy. I had an episode at the time, and he decided to stay home.”

Huggins also spent time recruiting Walker and O.J. Mayo, another Cincinnati phenom regarded as the nation’s top high school player. Walker and Mayo are friends, separated by a year.

“You’ve got to remember, with Bill Walker, he’d been recruiting him in Cincinnati,” Meacham said. “He’s been recruiting Bill for, gosh, since he was in ninth or 10th grade.”

Asked whether he recruited Walker and Mayo during his hiatus, Huggins said, “I can’t talk about those guys” because of NCAA rules that govern comments about possible recruits.

“I can say this: For the majority of time we were in Cincinnati, we were the hottest ticket in town, so for anyone not to come watch us play, they did. That’s what everybody wanted us to do. Do I know the kids in town? Sure, because they came around, they were on campus.”

Last week, The Star reported Walker had been admitted to Kansas State but had not yet enrolled. If things go smoothly, he could be playing for Huggins as soon as Dec. 17. A high school senior, Mayo remains undecided.

•••

Friends and coaches say Huggins’ off-the-clock recruiting efforts also took him to Pittsburgh and Florida.

“He was at … AAU stuff here and there,” Meacham said.

In Pittsburgh, good friend J.O. Stright ran an AAU team with top-tier recruits Herb Pope and Terrell Pryor and Division I prospects D.J. Kennedy and DeJuan Blair. Huggins spent a lot of his time there, according to Stright and other friends of Huggins’.

“Because he’s such a good coach, I said to him, ‘I’ll get my AAU guys together, and you come over to a gym and give some tips,’ ” Stright said. “And he did, and he was fabulous. Better than any clinics I’ve ever been to. He taught these kids so much. Obviously, he was recruiting a couple of my guys. They haven’t made a decision yet.”

Huggins also turned his attention to Florida, home of three players who would wind up signing with K-State — Bennett, Luis Colon and Blake Young.

The first was Bennett, the center Huggins had called about before leaving Cincinnati.

“When we played in Kentucky, he watched us play there, and at the end of the year came down and watched practice (in Jacksonville),” said Morgan, who was Bennett’s high school coach in Florida. “We were just waiting to see where he was going to land a job. ... It wasn’t cut and dried that Bennett would go with him. I told Coach, ‘If you get a job with Minnesota, Jason may not go there.’ ”

Huggins said he did drive to Kentucky to see Bennett play because it was close to Cincinnati but he did not go to Florida to see Bennett practice.

“A lot of people said that, because … in all honesty I was going to, but I just didn’t,” Huggins said. “I had planned on going down — we have a condo near there — and stay at the condo for a few weeks and see Rex and see Jason.”

Another Florida recruit was Young, a guard at Daytona Beach Community College. Young said he did not speak with Huggins until after he was hired at Kansas State. But the message that Huggins wanted Young to play for him was delivered before then.

“My coach, he was telling me about coach Huggins, that he was going to get a job and it would go from there,” Young said.

Similar conversations happened with other recruits across the country, messages being passed on through intermediaries that Huggins wanted players to wait until he was hired somewhere.

“He was working it. He’d still call them and still work on it, because he had to,” said Brian Hopton, a close friend of Huggins’. “He said, ‘Hang with me here, give me another year, and we’ll make this work out.’ And those kids gave them their word that they would. If he felt like he needed to go see a kid, he could jump on a plane and go see him. And he did. Or call him. He was very focused.”

•••

News that Huggins was driving a freight train through an NCAA loophole made its way to athletic directors looking for head coaches, as well as competing schools, scouts and the NCAA offices in Indianapolis.

“It became almost a running joke,” McAlister said. “How’d you like to be Bob Huggins right now? He’s in a situation so unique the NCAA is probably going, ‘Oh man, how’d we get here?’ They watched him do something so unique, with no limitations — going out and doing whatever he wanted — that there were no rules for it.”

Huggins’ approach made its way around coaching circles, as well.

“If there were rules in place to prevent something like that from happening then it would be a different story,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “But that isn’t the case. There aren’t any guidelines. So from my perspective ... it doesn’t bother me one bit.”

In Indianapolis, his efforts prompted meetings, NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn said.

“There’s been quite a lot of internal talks about this very issue here,” Osburn said.

None of what Huggins was doing, however, was or is against the rules. Osburn said any NCAA member school can ask for a review of the rules, but there are no current plans to address the issue of “retired” coaches recruiting players.

“If he wanted to take the kids on vacation with him, he’s not breaking any rules,” Hopton said. “For people to get on him now, come on — if it’s in the NCAA rule book, obviously he wouldn’t do that. But he established a relationship with these kids, and why can’t he continue it?”

Huggins is no stranger to the NCAA rule book, having faced probation and loss of scholarships at Cincinnati in 1998. He was summoned to Indianapolis after getting hired at K-State. School officials said the visit was a “refresher course” for a coach who had been away for only a matter of months.

Asked whether he thinks this recruiting loophole should be closed, Huggins said: “How do you do that? What are they going to tell me, when I retire and I want to go see friends of mine play? What are they going to do, put me on probation?

“That’s absurd.”

•••

In March, Bob Huggins found a school for his team. On the 23rd, he was introduced as Kansas State’s head basketball coach, and the pieces to the Wildcats’ next recruiting class quickly fell into place.

“He flew down when he got the job, the next day,” Young said.

On April 1, Huggins hired Dalonte Hill, an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte who had landed the small school an oral commitment from Michael Beasley, one of the country’s top recruits. Beasley, a high school senior this fall, was good enough to put UNC-Charlotte coach Bobby Lutz — Huggins’ close friend — and his program on the map.

But when Huggins hired Hill, Beasley soon followed. He changed his oral commitment to K-State and said recently he plans to play for Huggins in 2007.

“What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to hire bad assistants?” Huggins said. “My response to the Dalonte thing is, am I not supposed to hire the best assistants I can, and is Dalonte not supposed to look for better jobs to enhance his career? And I called Bobby. I did. Bobby said basically what all of us say: ‘I don’t want to stop Delonte from advancing professionally.’ The reality is, all of us got to where we are because we’ve moved and continued to move up the ladder.”

Lutz said: “It’s part of the business. I’ve moved on.”

Hill wasn’t the only assistant coach K-State hired with connections to Huggins’ recruits — a common practice in big-time Division I athletics. On April 12, Bennett committed to the program. Young committed a week later, and a few weeks after that, Huggins hired Young’s coach at Daytona Beach, former Kansas State player Brad Underwood, as the director of basketball operations. In May, Huggins landed big man Luis Colon, the 6-10 freshman from Miami.

In the end, Huggins had delivered the kind of players everyone thought he would. Recruiting without flag or school color had worked.

•••

The first hint that something extraordinary was happening in Manhattan came from the parking lot.

It was Oct. 13, and thousands of fans were standing outside Bramlage Coliseum, waiting in bitter cold to catch the first glimpse of what he’d brought with him.

It was basketball’s late night, a pep rally where players are introduced and scrimmage in front of the faithful.

When the doors opened, fans raced one another for the best seats — people bumping into each other, young men with letters painted on their bodies screaming, an older man shaking his head and saying, “I’ve never seen it like this.”

A short time later, the players walked to the center of the court. The crowd cheered loudly. Next, the team’s assistant coaches — Hill and Underwood among them — stepped out. More cheering.

After a long pause, Huggins strolled into a glaring spotlight.

The place went crazy.

Huggins took in the adulation. Not far away, watching, was his team — including Bennett, Young and the other recruits who’d come to K-State to play for him, the cornerstones of a program he began building in Cincinnati. In the stands, here for a recruiting visit, was Michael Beasley, clapping loudly.

“We’re going to play as hard as we can,” Huggins said into the microphone, “and we’re going to win some games.”

Standing there in the spotlight, the promise of a fresh start all around him, Huggins smiled.

[snart]

Bennett was the only player that Huggins got from his off-season contacts.  I guess some could argue Walker too, but Huggins and Walker have a relationship that goes back to Walker's junior high days and Walker would have played for Huggins regardless.  All the other recruits that have signed, or are considering K-State, weren't recruited before Huggins got the KSU job.  So I really don't see what all hoopla about this 'behind the scenes' recruiting is about.  I guess it gives sports writers something to yap about...

[jarrr]

Bennett was the only player that Huggins got from his off-season contacts.  I guess some could argue Walker too, but Huggins and Walker have a relationship that goes back to Walker's junior high days and Walker would have played for Huggins regardless.  All the other recruits that have signed, or are considering K-State, weren't recruited before Huggins got the KSU job.  So I really don't see what all hoopla about this 'behind the scenes' recruiting is about.  I guess it gives sports writers something to yap about...

I think Colon mightve been a benefactor as well, but he was a high recruit for him when he was at UC same as Bennett. Bennett was already committed to UC anyway. The only player it really made a difference could be Terrelle Pryor if he comes to KSU.

[wildcat79]

I think what you have here is sour grapes by the threatened ku faithfuls that are afraid that Huggin will out do Bill Self both on and off the court! ku domination in basketball is over.

[Jeffrey_Martin]

It's a legitimate story. But the thing to remember - or so I was told when I wrote this story a week after Huggins was hired, but on a smaller scale  - is that a) this is totally legal, and b) it's also a totally unique situation. What they didn't touch on in the story is, how many kids are going to trust their future to an unemployed coach? Huggins didn't know where he'd end up. But Bennett waited, and it seems Walker is going to follow Huggins to Manhattan.

Do you think Quin Snyder can be recruiting kids right now that might follow him to a mid-major job somewhere? What about Wooly? There are only a few coaches nationally who could pull this off, and one coaches at your school. Pretty amazing - you guys should send Tim Weiser a thank-you note.

[BooyahKU]

Asked how he went about recruiting players when he didn’t have a job, Huggins said, “I honestly don’t remember that I did.”

 

[Dan Rydell]

It was nice to see this expose-type piece about ku and their rampant academic fraud and NCAA violation issues last year...putting us "in the room" with those GA's who helped take tests and getting quotes from parents of the kids who received illegal benefits from the school...getting "no comments" from guys like Kirk Hinrich and Drew Gooden about their "graduation gifts"...looking into ku recruits switching their commitments to ku without a visit...implying that Bill Self is using something other than legal means to get recruits from the Chicago area.  So I guess it goes both ways.

Oh, wait. No, the Star did no expose on ku, even though they were frigging GUILTY.  On the other hand, they see fit to write a story on Huggins and KSU where no rules violations occured.

 

Edit:  And don't forget the expose they just did on Deb Patterson.  I suppose we can expect one on Ron Prince next.  Meanwhile, those dirty hypcrites at the Flaw on the Kaw get a free pass.  Disgusting.

[catfan28]

It's a legitimate story. But the thing to remember - or so I was told when I wrote this story a week after Huggins was hired, but on a smaller scale  - is that a) this is totally legal, and b) it's also a totally unique situation. What they didn't touch on in the story is, how many kids are going to trust their future to an unemployed coach? Huggins didn't know where he'd end up. But Bennett waited, and it seems Walker is going to follow Huggins to Manhattan.

Do you think Quin Snyder can be recruiting kids right now that might follow him to a mid-major job somewhere? What about Wooly? There are only a few coaches nationally who could pull this off, and one coaches at your school. Pretty amazing - you guys should send Tim Weiser a thank-you note.

Very well put JM.

I was thinking the same thing. And if anything, I think this article just shows how much of a genius Huggins is, and how fortunate we were in the situation to land him.

The Huggins situation is "unique" and so was the Walker deal. But the NCAA knows it was ALL legal.

It's ironic that ku is on probation for some NCAA rules broken, and yet Huggins is doing everything within the rules to piss them off even more. 

[cireksu]

"you guys should send Tim Weiser a thank-you note."


Jeff I think you are mistaken.  You see, Tim Weiser doesn't care about men's basketball at KSU, only Women's and Baseball.

[The1BigWillie]

JM...  there's a little rumor going around that you are collecting info and just waiting to write a hammer piece on Huggins and that he athletic department is aware of it.  Do you care do comment? 

[snart]

there's a little rumor going around that you are collecting info and just waiting to write a hammer piece on Huggins

Well, if that comes to happen it will be the last time I read any of his work.  But hey, Greg Doyel and the 'Colorado Clown' don't seem to miss my support...

[The Manhatter]

Agreed JMart.  The article is just telling it like it is whether ku fans want to try to say something different.  Hell, he even threw in a quote from Self having no problem w/ it(bet he really does) since it is LEGAL.

It's hard to "nail" a guy who does something that he is not prohibited from doing.

Hugs quote of, "what are they going to do...put me on 'probation' "   

I just wish Hugs had done a little more  at the people trying to say it was shady. IMO more "yep, I did it and what are you going to do about it(laughing)" quotes were in order.

[Jeffrey_Martin]

JM...  there's a little rumor going around that you are collecting info and just waiting to write a hammer piece on Huggins and that he athletic department is aware of it.  Do you care do comment? 

Is this before or after I write the same story about Prince? No dice, man. Good to see I'm in the athletic department's thoughts, though. For real, I'm cool with Bob. I've explained to Tim on numerous occasions I don't see anything wrong with what Bob has done, past or present. It's complicated, but I think he played well within the rules at UC. When the rules changed - when the new president was named - he was expendable.

Now, if something was to happen here, I'd be all over it. But I'm not entering into this thinking the man is guilty. Not at all, in fact. I think he's good people.

Do people really think I'm a hatchet man? Damn...

[The1BigWillie]

JM I heard nothing concrete and have no clue as to the opinions of the AD as far as your concerned.  I hate to throw "internet rumors" around but I guess this is the place to do it.  I probably shouldn't have even said anything.  I greatly appreciate all of your input here and know for a fact there are people from "other sites" that wish you posted on their site.   

[NVExel]

But really, what is it with the Star?...that was the longest piece that said nothing I have ever seen.

[Levi Wolters]

JM...  there's a little rumor going around that you are collecting info and just waiting to write a hammer piece on Huggins and that he athletic department is aware of it.  Do you care do comment? 

Is there any way you can link where you saw this, BigWillie?