Earlier this week, high school hoops standout Anthony Bennett irked many in Big Blue Nation when he eliminated Kentucky from his list of prospective schools. Bennett, the seventh-ranked prospect in the class of 2013 according to Rivals, briefly made news after the decision for being berated with negative, often vulgar, tweets from scorned Wildcats fans. Now, Bennett, who’s presently deciding between Oregon and UNLV, and his Twitter account have caught the spotlight again, and this time it involves a popular late-night TV host.
On Tuesday, funnyman Jimmy Kimmel, who grew up in Vegas and briefly attended UNLV but did not graduate, reached out to Bennett on Twitter, trying to convince the Findlay Prep (Henderson, Nev.) power forward to sign with their hometown Rebels:
UNLV needs you Anthony! @Salsaa_Stylez @ABennett24 @UNLVRebellion @Salsaa_Stylez @ABennett24 @UNLVRebellion
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) May 8, 2012
While the tweet seems harmless, it still counts as an NCAA recruiting violation, believe it or not. As College Basketball Talk pointed out last month, anybody who attempts to persuade a recruit to sign with a certain school classifies as that scary B-word in college athletics: a booster. And, obviously, boosters aren’t allowed to recruit prospective student-athletes (which, honestly, sounds like circular logic, but what else do you expect from the NCAA?). We highly doubt Kimmel knew he was in the wrong by sending that tweet.
It seems like such a petty violation for the NCAA to attempt to monitor, with the thousands on top of thousands of shameless fans on Twitter who are guilty of this. But given Kimmel’s prominence, this totally egregious violation of the NCAA’s sacred recruiting rules will probably lead to him being slapped with a 10-year show-cause penalty for late-night TV.
H/T The Big Lead
Photo credit: Brian Spurlock-US PRESSWIRE
