Ohio’s Cooper Has Seen the Dark Side
By PETE THAMEL
NASHVILLE — When players like Lehigh’s C.J. McCollum or Ohio’s D.J. Cooper put on a transcendent performance in the N.C.A.A. tournament, they are showered with adulation and publicity that is usually lacking for lower-profile programs.
But as Cooper found out after his freshman year at Ohio in 2010, there is also a dark side to stepping onto the national stage for the first time in the N.C.A.A. tournament. When asked if he had many coaches trying to lure him from Ohio after he scored 23 points in an upset of Georgetown in that year’s N.C.A.A. tournament, Cooper smiled.
“I was getting calls left and right,” he said. “I was getting some calls from different high-major schools and different people. I’m big on loyalty.”
Cooper stayed at Ohio and was an unusual modern recruit. He had interest from universities like Baylor, California and Wichita State but decided on Ohio because it recruited him the hardest.
Both Cooper and his high school coach, Brandon Thomas, declined to name the programs trying to poach him. Recruiting a player before he is released from his current program is against N.C.A.A. rules. Cooper’s mother, Dionne, identified Baylor Coach Scott Drew as someone who attempted to lure her son from Ohio.
“He wasn’t necessarily calling and saying, ‘Come on over,’ ” she said. “He would say: ‘Oh, this is great. I knew you could do it. The exposure you’re getting now, you’re not getting it in the MAC because you’re not on TV.’ He was really trying to sell to me. ‘We know you can do these things, but because of where you are, you’re not getting the attention you deserve.’ ” (Drew did not return a text message seeking comment.)
D.J. Cooper declined to comment when asked if Kenneth Caldwell, a Chicago-based runner for an agent, who admitted recruiting players for Central Florida and other programs, had reached out to him. Caldwell had a close relationship with Jerome Randle, the former Pac-10 player of the year at California who played with Cooper when he attended Hales Franciscan High School in Chicago. All Cooper would say about Caldwell is that he knew him.
Cooper played his senior year at Seton Academy in Illinois, where Thomas, a former Hales Franciscan assistant, said he could not believe the amount of poachers.
“I remember my phone ringing as I had an unsigned senior,” Thomas said. “I thought it was amazing. That was a side of the business I had never experienced, coaches trying to pry a guy away and pry him away from Ohio.”
And that is modern college basketball, where even the shining moments have a dark side.
