You must not have been around when all the Danny Granger stuff came down in early 2003.
Here is a link to a story from 3/5/03 when New Mexico coach Ritchie McKay called a press conference just for Danny Granger to speak about his falling out with Jim Les and his transfer to New Mexico.
In it he says that at Bradley he was "treated like a slave" (see the 11th paragraph).
http://www.dailylobo.com/media/stor...te200605141428&sourcedomain=www.dailylobo.com
I doubt this has ever happened before, that a player who has quit his team at one school and transferred in the middle of a season calls a press conferenced just for the sake of bashing his former coach. I have never heard of it before or since, has anyone else?
But actually, McKay and Granger obviously called this press conference to distract attention away from what had happened, and to deflect the criticism that they were getting for obvious NCAA violations that they had committed.
McKay had already been denying that they had improperly contacted Granger while he was at Bradley. It was only after the Albuquerque Tribune obtained cell phone records from UNM through the Freedom of Information Act (since they are a public institution) that they changed their story and rescripted their excuses.
Here is another interesting article from a Journal Star story about Granger. His father admits that while Danny was still at Bradley, seven schools called and tried to persuade him to transfer. He never admits that one of them was New Mexico, but you would have to be mindless if you don't think that during all those cell phone calls by Duane Broussard, that the subject wasn't discussed.
When the coaching change happened, I'd decided I was transferring," the sophomore forward said. "I was thinking about Tulane or New Mexico."
The list of possible new basketball homes was even greater, according to Granger's father, Danny Sr., who said seven schools illegally contacted him last spring to discuss his son's transfer to their institution.
The elder Granger wouldn't name names, but said several were Louisiana Division I schools.
" At first, I was leaning toward him transferring," he said. "We're trying to get him to the NBA and with a new coach coming in, you don't know what you should do.
"All of those schools wanted to offer him scholarships. Some of them called me directly and some contacted me through other people. They all were putting Bradley down, saying the new coach has no coaching experience, that Danny has the talent to go to The League (NBA) and it would be a big mistake if he stayed at Bradley."
http://registermail.com/services/sports/2002hoops/stories/f919227a.html
Here is another article that says --
"Broussard, a former assistant to Molinari, had accepted a job offer from McKay around the same time. Broussard was the man most responsible for recruiting Granger to Bradley."
http://web.abqtrib.com/archives/sports03/012503_sports_granger.shtml
Note that it is illegal for another school to talk to a student athlete of another school (let alone "recruit" him) unless he is released from his scholarship, which Bradley never did with Granger. In this article, McKay even says "We're innocent in this process.", and denied tampering. Of course, that was before the cell phone records were revealed proving him wrong.
And here is another article that points out that McKay and Broussard lied about their actions--
http://www.buscout.com/ver4.0/2003-03-07/granger.shtml
This article points out there were at least 42 phone calls documented by the phone records, when McKay and Broussard had initially said he only called to say hello and wish Granger happy birthday. Broussard explained that one of his longest phone calls to Granger, made May 20, 2002, was made to inquire about the coaching search and the status of Bradley's open coaching position. In fact, Bradley hired Jim Les back on April 7, 2002, over 1 1/2 months earlier.
Another funny article about this--
http://archive.ivybasketball.com//ubbthreads/printthread.php?Board=ivyboard&main=13470&type=post
