Photo Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Photo Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Well, this sounds exactly like the Jerry Jones/Adrian Peterson story: According to the Hartford Courant, UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma was reported to the AAC for a potential recruiting violation because he talked to Mo’ne Davis on the phone.

The Courant says that Auriemma was asked to call Mo’ne “through a phone call from a friend who had been contacted by the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers.” Auriemma said the call was to reach out to her because “she loves basketball, and congratulations or something seem in order.” Fair enough. The coach says he was then contacted by the Little League communications office and “it was agreed that he would just call and relay a message.” When Auriemma called, Davis was there and was handed the phone. Of getting tattled on for it, Aureimma said:

“The conversation lasted like two minutes and we hung up. And then I was told a school turned us in for a recruiting violation because we are not allowed contact of July 1 before her junior year of high school. … That’s the world that we live in.

Under normal circumstances, I would probably not know anything about her until she was in ninth grade. I have no idea if the kid is very good, kind of good, not good at all or a superstar or can even reach the basket. How is that a violation? … There are guys playing college basketball driving around in cars worth more than my house and we’re worried about a phone call to a little girl?”

Of course, this is only an issue because Davis has previously mentioned that she would want to play basketball for UConn down the road, and therefore anything she does from now until she enters college will be scrutinized by the NCAA. Talking to coaches? No good. Making money? Not good for your “amateur” status. Each step will be watched closely. Although the tide is starting to turn against the NCAA’s often insane and flimsy rules, so Davis may not even have to worry about that by the time she’s going into college in five years.