It seems like every year, an ethical quagmire springs up in the hellish and cutthroat world of college basketball recruiting. Over the past year, it's been questions about the role of text messaging in contacting recruits. This summer, however, the primary question has shifted to the meaning of an early verbal commitment. It's happened before that a recruit has reneged, and it's a more frequent phenomenon in football, but this summer, with the verbals of two elite players appearing weak or meaningless, it is indeed a good time to address the precise meaning of a verbal commitment.
Then we have the case of Eric Gordon, an elite guard from Indianapolis. Back in November, Gordon held a press conference and made a solid verbal commitment to play for Bruce Weber at Illinois. In the meantime, Indiana fired anemic coach Mike Davis and hired Kelvin Sampson. Sampson, in turn, hired Jeff Meyer, a well-connected Midwestern coach who coached Eric Gordon Sr. at Liberty University. Couple this fact with Sampson's vociferous desire to make keeping Indiana talent in Indiana and all of a sudden, trying to lure Gordon to Bloomington became an established goal for the Indiana coaches and fans alike. Sampson and his coaches began calling and - whether out of courtesy or genuine interest - the Gordons started listening. Indiana's die-hard followers started a campaign pleading for him to stay in-state and help lead their program back to glory.
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