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You may have heard about a story written recently that Kansas coach Bill Self attended a Word of God (Raleigh, NC) game and had a brief interaction with John Wall (No. 1 senior PG) after the game.

The NCAA prohibits contacts between college coaches and players right now, but they do allow a friendly hello.

The question, then, is what to make of this? It doesn't appear to be anything noteworthy on the surface, yet the initial reports were loaded with scandalous language. Self has been queried about the topic since then, and it's possible that KU's recruitment of Wall could be affected.

Personally, I don't think that something so extreme is warranted for a very minor offense, but what do you guys think?

Here's one of the stories floating around on the internet:

http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/story/1375842.html

If the NCAA truly wanted to prevent these regular exchanges between coaches and recruits, they'd make the recruits' coaches off-limit as well. As for this exchange, it's a non-story. I'm sure Robb and Eric would agree that every coach does this same type of thing. Happens all the time. It sounds to me like Self told Wall he couldn't talk to him as Wall approached him. Then, of course, told him he played well. Big deal. It's not like he pulled him into the janitor's closet to put the full court press on him while showing him a video of the national title game.

I would add that regardless of one's opinion on the topic, it is refreshing to hear a coach actually address it directly instead of issuing the standard "no comment" comment or directing the reporter to the university's compliance office.

cookie wrote:

If the NCAA truly wanted to prevent these regular exchanges between coaches and recruits, they'd make the recruits' coaches off-limit as well. As for this exchange, it's a non-story. I'm sure Robb and Eric would agree that every coach does this same type of thing. Happens all the time. It sounds to me like Self told Wall he couldn't talk to him as Wall approached him. Then, of course, told him he played well. Big deal. It's not like he pulled him into the janitor's closet to put the full court press on him while showing him a video of the national title game.

I would add that regardless of one's opinion on the topic, it is refreshing to hear a coach actually address it directly instead of issuing the standard "no comment" comment or directing the reporter to the university's compliance office.

I agree. And definitely on the fact that he was willing to discuss it. You could sort of sense that he was rolling his eyes at the whole thing, which probably was appropriate.

Coach Self was talking to us after the game as he usually does. The brief exchange between he and John was nothing. Surely he wouldn't risk breaking any rules, especially in such a heavily populated and open area for everyone to see and hear. Coach Self congratulated him and kept it moving.
We'll see if the NCAA sees it the same way.

khris wrote:

Coach Self was talking to us after the game as he usually does. The brief exchange between he and John was nothing. Surely he wouldn't risk breaking any rules, especially in such a heavily populated and open area for everyone to see and hear. Coach Self congratulated him and kept it moving.
We'll see if the NCAA sees it the same way.

Thanks for the clarification, Khris.

I hope they don't see it as a big deal. They shouldn't.