Canadian website, coach blast UTEP’s recruitment of Isiah Osborne

A Canadian basketball website, CANHoops.com published an interesting article today questioning the recruitment of the Miners latest addition Isiah Osborne.

In the article, Carleton University head coach Dave Smart, who coaches against Windsor University where Osborne transferred from, blasted the UTEP basketball program, and plenty of questions are raised in the article on how UTEP landed the 6’5 guard.

CANHoops questions the ethical process that UTEP went about recruiting Osborne, claiming a UTEP assistant coach contacted Osborne, who was committed and played in an exhibition game ahead of this season for Windsor, and initiated the initial contact.

UTEP center Matt Willms saw Osborne drop 35 points in a recent intentional exhibition, and a few days later Osborne committed to UTEP per the article.

Tim Floyd acknowledged that Willms “recommended him to the coaching staff.”

They mention Tim Floyd’s past, and the current state of UTEP hoops, calling UTEP’s recruitment of Osborne desperate, and seemingly try to label Floyd and UTEP as American villains.

Now while there is no by-law against such practice, Winsdor University Athletic Director Mike Havey wants to see this resolved, but for what?

Here is a direct quote from Havey from the CANHoops.com article.

“the University of Windsor will pursue remedies to this case through consultation with the NCAA via CIS channels and through Conference USA through the OUA executive. As well, we will push to create legislation and protocols that include proper sanctions for violation of these protocols.”

Again, there are no legislative laws set by the NCAA to prevent this from happening, but Windsor seems pretty pissed that UTEP took a player away just weeks before their regular season starts.

UTEP said they are currently in the process of gaining Osborne’s eligibility to play for the Miners this season squared away.

The question now is will this report from CANHoops, who spoke with Havey for their article, effect Osborne’s UTEP status for the 2016-17 season.

Now back to Smart’s comments via CANHoops.

“(Osborne) is going to a school that is not any better basketball wise then he was already at. He is also going somewhere where they will not come close to developing him the way his CIS school would have… It’s disappointing that the top 6-8 CIS teams year in year out do not get the respect that they deserve from the Canadian basketball community compared to mid to low level Division 1 teams… It’s disappointing because kids of his caliber are given very poor advice for their basketball and post basketball futures. I’m just happy that most of the parents and coaches of the players we have been fortunate enough to recruit understand what is best for their players and sons from a basketball and life perspective. In my opinion it’s an unfortunate decision for the player more than anything. I guarantee his basketball life would be better in 4 years if he had stayed at Windsor. I know there isn’t a player on our team that would be better off at a mid to low Division 1 school rather than Carleton.”

This is coming from a rival coach who prepares to beat Windsor every year, so is this a case of bitter folks from up north, or is there something else were missing with this story?