Probe: UConn violated NCAA rules
The University of Connecticut violated NCAA rules in the recruitment of former guard Nate Miles, a six-month investigation by Yahoo! Sports has found.
Miles was provided with lodging, transportation, restaurant meals and representation by Josh Nochimson ? a professional sports agent and former UConn student manager ? between 2006 and 2008, according to multiple sources. A UConn assistant coach said he made Nochimson aware of the Huskies? recruitment of Miles. Later, the assistant coach said he knew that Nochimson and Miles had talked.
As a representative of UConn?s athletic interests, NCAA rules barred Nochimson from having contact with Miles or from providing him with anything of value.
The relationship and UConn?s knowledge of the situation are potential major NCAA violations. The findings are part of Yahoo! Sports? ongoing look into the changing role of agents and their impact on college basketball. Agents aren?t just recruiting players from college programs, they are recruiting players for them, according to an NCAA official.
The UConn basketball staff was in constant contact with Nochimson during a nearly two-year period up to and after Miles? recruitment. Five different UConn coaches traded at least 1,565 phone and text communications with Nochimson, including 16 from head coach Jim Calhoun. Yahoo! Sports obtained the records through the Freedom of Information Act. The documents were requested in October and received two weeks ago. Many of UConn?s communications with Nochimson were clustered with calls and texts to Miles or his inner circle.
UConn athletic director Jeff Hathaway and Calhoun declined comment through a university spokesman late Tuesday.
UConn may have committed major recruiting violations by exceeding NCAA limits on phone calls to Miles and those closest to him, records show. The NCAA allows a single phone call per month to a prospect or his family in a player?s junior year of high school. That limit was exceeded over several months from late 2006 into 2007. In December of 2006, for instance, former UConn assistant coach Tom Moore made 27 calls to Miles? guardian and a person Miles referred to as an uncle. He made three calls to Miles.
The relationship between Miles and Nochimson began at a Nov. 11, 2006 high school tournament in suburban Chicago. While sitting with Nochimson and watching Miles play, Moore told Nochimson that UConn was actively recruiting the player. Later that day, Miles said, he was introduced to Nochimson.
Moore said he knew the player and the agent were in contact after the event. Records show that Moore traded multiple text messages with both Miles and Nochimson in the evenings of Nov. 11 and Nov. 12, 2006.
Eight days later, Miles, a Toledo, Ohio native, committed to UConn. Calhoun later said the sinewy 6-foot-7 prospect had ?as much basketball ability? as any player he?d ever brought to Connecticut.
From that first meeting until Miles was expelled from the university in October 2008 for violating a restraining order brought by a female student, Nochimson played an integral role in the player?s life. The agent guided Miles, who had social and academic difficulties, through a jagged journey to Connecticut
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Probe: UConn violated NCAA rules - College Basketball - Rivals.com
