{"id":160441,"date":"2026-03-11T16:01:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T16:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/160441\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T16:01:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T16:01:36","slug":"queens-coach-grant-leonard-accuses-sec-assistant-of-courtside-recruiting-during-asun-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/160441\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens coach Grant Leonard accuses SEC assistant of courtside recruiting during ASUN Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queens coach Grant Leonard accuses SEC assistant of courtside recruiting during ASUN Tournament<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Queens coach Grant Leonard said an opposing coach from the SEC attempted to get an early jump on recruiting one of his players by attending an Atlantic Sun Conference tournament game courtside.<\/p>\n

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Leonard revealed the incident Wednesday in a post on social media, saying the coach purchased a seat specifically to scout one of Queens\u2019 players during the Royals\u2019 ASUN tournament matchup against West Georgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had an SEC assistant buy a courtside seat for one of our conference tournament games to \u2018get ahead\u2019 of recruiting one of my kids,\u201d Leonard wrote on X.<\/p>\n

While Leonard did not identify the coach or program involved, he said the individual was clearly visible during the game.<\/p>\n

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\u201cGo watch the film, our conference tournament game vs UWG, he\u2019s courtside, plain as day to see,\u201d Leonard added.<\/p>\n

The situation sparked debate across college basketball circles about the ethics of recruiting tactics in the transfer portal era. Longtime college basketball reporter Jeff Goodman was critical of the move, suggesting it crossed an unwritten line within the coaching profession.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just bulls— to me,\u201d Goodman wrote<\/a>. \u201cIs it within the actual rules? Maybe. But there\u2019s a line of morality that coaches just shouldn\u2019t cross within the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

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More:\u00a0Adrian Autry says the quiet part out loud about Syracuse’s future<\/a><\/p>\n

Goodman added that the increasingly aggressive recruiting environment could lead to more tension among coaches, particularly on the summer AAU circuit.<\/p>\n

The comments came as Queens prepares for its first NCAA Tournament appearance since becoming eligible at the Division I level. The Royals captured the ASUN\u2019s automatic bid with a conference tournament title.<\/p>\n

More college basketball news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queens coach Grant Leonard accuses SEC assistant of courtside recruiting during ASUN Tournament originally appeared on The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[66208,66207,66205,66206,9,24,63,122,124,123,66209,31746],"class_list":["post-160441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-atlantic-sun-conference-tournament","tag-conference-tournament","tag-grant-leonard","tag-jeff-goodman","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-recruiting-tactics","tag-sec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}