Jeff Van Gundy accuses Mizzou of cheating

And one of my favorite broadcast teams for NBA games is the Mike Tirico, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson trio that calls a lot of games on ESPN and ABC. I know a lot of people find Tirico and Van Gundy to be annoying but I think the three have a genuine chemistry, which is the most important element to a good broadcast team. And you can't knock Van Gundy or Jackson's knowledge of the game. Those two give insights that nobody other than a former coach or player would be able to give. Like how to ineffectively break up a fight between NBA tough guys like Charles Oakley and Alonzo Mourning. 

But last night JVG said something during Game 2 of the Lakers-Nuggets Conference Finals series that I couldn't let slide. I found out about this through a Twitter exchange with Dave Matter. Apparently at some point during the game Van Gundy was speaking about Nuggets' reserve forward and former Missouri Tiger Linas Kleiza. He asked how a Lithuanian who went to high school in Maryland could end up playing his college ball in Missouri. Then, according to Matter, made a blatant reference to dirty recruiting. 

Now Linas was a Quin player so we all know the program wasn't exactly clean at the time of Kleiza's recruitment. But while there were certainly plenty of allegations made about the program during that period there were never, at least to my knowledge, any claims of shady recruiting involving the big man from Lithuania. 

I realize part of an analyst's job is to speculate on certain things but shouldn't JVG at least have some sort of evidence before making that kind of claim claim? Not only is he condemning Mizzou with that statement (which I could care less about with the way the program was being run at that time) but he's also saying something about Linas' character when he speculates that he took part in some not-so-legal recruiting practices. 

For his part, Kleiza finished with 16 points on 5-of-8 shooting (4-of-7 from 3) and hauled in eight rebounds in 22 minutes as the Nuggets stole one from LA on the road with a 106-103 victory. This is shaping up to be an excellent series.