NBC Sports puts picture of Cal with "sleaze" headline

@MrsTylerKSR

Your Cal haters of the day: Rob Dauster and NBC Sports. Last week, Rob Dauster wrote about the third-party recruiting debate stirred up by Ken Caldwell and the University of Central Florida. The article explored how corrupt college basketball recruiting has become and shocker, Dauster included Cal in the the company of "these guys" who are so hard to catch:

It’s a thought that has crossed my mind many times. I don’t spend nearly as much time in recruiting circles as lot of the more well-known writers and I’ve heard numerous rumors about Recruit X getting Y amount of dollars from Coach Z. I’m sure there are guys out there that can detail you precise figures for all of the transactions that have occurred over the last decade. How much did OJ Mayo get from USC? Why is John Calipari cornering the market on the blue-chip recruit? What amount of money did it take for Adidas to keep Shabazz Muhammad in the family?

Dauster quoted an article Gary Parrish wrote on the subject in which Parrish discussed the recruitment of the Harrison twins, and why Kentucky and Maryland were the perceived favorites for the pair:

"Because Kentucky is Kentucky and John Calipari is John Calipari, and those two entities have a way of getting things done. And because Maryland is the alma mater of Kevin Plank, who is the CEO of Under Armour, which is the company that outfits Maryland's athletic department and this summer funded the Harrison twins, both of whom are consensus top-10 prospects."

Okay, fine, whatever. Maryland seems to be getting an edge because of their association with Under Armour and Kentucky has an edge because they have Cal, fifteen players in the pros in three years, and a National Championship. I'm sure Parrish was probably implying more, but for him, that's pretty tame. Dauster used Parrish's passage as more evidence that the recruiting game is inherently "sleazy" and instead of putting a picture of Caldwell with the article, he (or his editor) popped in a picture of Cal, so that on the NBC Sports' College Basketball Talk page, this is what you see:

Sigh. Haters gonna hate.