UConn Huskies men’s basketball head coach Jim Calhoun addressed the rumors of the alleged recruiting violations of the recruitment of Nate Miles during the press conference for tonight’s matchup with the Purdue Boilermakers.

We all knew that he was going to have to address and must have gotten the go ahead from AD Jeff Hathaway before making the statement.

Here is what A.J. Price and Jeff Adrien had to say when asked about it.

Q. For both players, you guys have had distractions all year. You lost Dyson. Your coach missed a tournament game. Now there are some Internet reports about recruiting and so forth. How has this team been able to go about its business? It doesn’t seem like it affects you guys, but why does it not affect you guys when there are all these things going on?

JEFF ADRIEN: We are just mentally tough. It starts with our coach. We don’t let stuff like that bother us or whatever. We have been through a lot of ups and downs in our lives and everything. We just know how to block it off. We are mentally tough.

A.J. PRICE: Yeah, we just focus on the things we know how to do which is play basketball. We just go out there and take it one game at a time.

Everything else will eventually come out of the wash and take care of itself.

Jim Calhoun’s full press conference in words after the jump.

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Boston Celtics: Trailing 83-82, Doc Rivers gave the ball to Paul Pierce and he drove to the basket with 3.8 seconds left only to have Superman Dwight Howard block his shot. After the Magic made a foul shot, Pierce missed a three-pointer giving the Orlando Magic an 84-82 win over the Boston Celtics to take over second place in the Eastern Conference on Wednesday night in Orlando. The win also clinched the Southeast Division for the Magic. Pierce led the Celtics with 26 points while former UConn Husky Ray Allen added 16 points and Kendrick Perkins had 11 points and 11 rebounds. The Celtics were missing Kevin Garnett at the end as he was on the bench and finished with just 4 points in 16 minutes. Howard had a monster game with 24 points and 21 rebounds while Rashard Lewis chipped in with 21 points. The Celtics will stay down south as they head to Atlanta to take on the Hawks on Friday night. [ESPN.com]

The Original Dirt Dog: The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is reporting that Milwaukee Brewers have released former Boston Red Sox outfielder Trot Nixon. He played with the New York Mets last season seeing action in 11 games before being put on the disabled list. Nixon was trying to make it as a backup outfielder for the Brew Crew. Could the Red Sox take a flyer on him and sign him to a minor league deal for some depth. [Brewers Blog]

This could be the funniest thing I’ve seen on a car in a long while.

As I was taking the dog on his afternoon walk, we were cutting through the parking lot where I reside and I noticed this funny license plate.

Normally you see things like this on a fake license plate or some other novelty item or even on a license plate down south. And being a UConn Huskies fan who had to suffer through a last second buzzer-beater by Duke, I can definitely appreciate this.

Sorry for the quality of the photo, my cell phone doesn’t take the best pictures.

According to a report in Yahoo! Sports, the UConn Huskies may have committed some major recruiting violations in the recruitment of former although brief Husky Nate Miles.

The report states that Nate Miles was provided with lodging, transportation, restaurant meals and representation by Josh Nochimson, a professional sports agent and former UConn student manager, between 2006 and 2008. It also states that five different UConn coaches traded at least 1,565 phone and text communications with Nochimson, including 16 from head coach Jim Calhoun.

The players in the Yahoo! Sports investigation are Miles, Nochimson, Calhoun, former assistant and now Quinnipiac coach Tom Moore, Sean Patterson (Miles’ guardian) and Jerry Easter (Miles’ “uncle”).

As an alumnus and former associate of the men’s basketball program, Nochimson is defined by the NCAA as a representative of UConn’s “athletic interests.” As such, NCAA rules say he could “not be involved in the recruiting process” and could “not make any contact, including telephone calls and letters, to a prospect or the prospect’s family, on or off campus.”

That UConn was aware of the improper Nochimson-Miles relationship could be a further violation, according to the NCAA. Under NCAA rules, UConn is culpable for contact and benefits provided by any representative of its athletic interests regardless of the school’s knowledge. In this case, Moore not only admitted to Yahoo! Sports, “I know that Josh contacted Nate a couple of times,” but documents show pages upon pages of phone and text correspondence.

This is huge folks. If this report turns out to be true, which it seems it will, the Huskies will face major sanctions from the NCAA which could include probation, being barred from the NCAA Tournament and loss of scholarships among other things.

I highly suggest that you read the whole Yahoo! Sports article to get the full grasp of what happened.

UConn officials had no comment on this investigation and you can bet that this will be the big subject of conversation when UConn holds it press conference this afternoon in anticipation of tomorrow night’s game against the Purdue Boilermakers.

Probe: UConn violated NCAA rules [Yahoo! Sports]