Another recruiting violation

Hey, remember a few hours ago when I wrote about that Jake Kelly kid taking calls from Alford? Yeah, turns out he wasn't the only one Alford called.

From the P-C:

HawkeyeNation.com quotes Cole as saying that both Alford and associate head coach Craig Neal are trying to lure him to New Mexico.

"It could be an option," Cole told HawkeyeNation.com. "I’m not sure if that’s where I want to be at, but perhaps. They explained to me that it’s a basketball school and you don’t have to deal with football. They’re putting a bunch of money in their arena and building a practice facility that will open this year. That sounds good."

Oh boy. Kelly and Cole are both signed recruits. Let's see if this blows up any worse--I'm hoping "yes"; I wasn't ready for the Alford experience to go away so quickly.

We're not done with Alford

Sounds like Alford's already started recruiting down at New Mexico. That's all fine and good, except he's recruiting Iowa signees:

Jake Kelly, who signed a national letter-of-intent with the Iowa men's basketball program in November, told The Gazette last night that Steve Alford has invited him to play for his new team at New Mexico.

[...]

"He said he'd like for me to come and that he thinks he's got a good future here,'' Kelly said. "He said it's a big-time place and he's excited about it.''

Whoops. Fred Mims in the athletic department here declined to go as far as to call it an NCAA violation, but that isn't ultimately his call to make. I hope the NCAA throws the book at him.

The author of the story, Jim Ecker, indicates Kelly confirmed multiple times that Alford invited him to play down in New Mexico.

The crazy part is that Alford was never a rule-breaker at Iowa. He was a crappy coach, but he was a crappy coach the right way.