You can never quite tell with the NCAA. While Maryland received good news Wednesday when its appeal was granted to let talented guard Dez Wells play immediately this season after a transfer from Xavier, Indiana found itself on the other end of the NCAA’s wheel of justice the day before.
Forward Hanner Mosquera-Perea and center Peter Jurkin, two key freshmen for the top-ranked Hoosiers, have been suspended nine games each for receiving impermissible benefits from a booster. That “booster” is their legal guardian, a man named Mark Adams who runs an AAU program in Bloomington that brings in kids from other countries and gives them a chance to earn a college scholarship. The $185 Adams’ ex-wife reportedly gave to the Indiana University Varsity Club from 1986 to 1992 — 15 years before Jurkin and Mosquera-Perea came to live with him — made Adams a booster in the NCAA’s eyes. Those benefits, in turn, were deemed improper, and suspensions and fines were imposed. The school likely will appeal and — as in the Wells case — could win a reduction. But it just seems bizarre that it even has to try. Neither player was born when those payments were made.
– Brian McNally
