{"id":162408,"date":"2026-03-13T14:58:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/162408\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T14:58:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:58:36","slug":"ian-borders-auburn-assistant-coach-sat-courtside-at-asun-tournament-game-queens-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/162408\/","title":{"rendered":"Ian Borders Auburn assistant coach sat courtside at ASUN tournament game Queens, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Queens head basketball coach Grant Leonard accused an unnamed SEC coach<\/a> of buying a courtside seat to \u201cget ahead\u201d of recruiting one of his players, rumors have swirled of who the coach was.<\/p>\n

The Charlotte Observer reported<\/a> on Wednesday that the coach in question was Auburn assistant Ian Borders.<\/p>\n

The report claimed that Leonard wouldn\u2019t name who the coach was in an interview with The Observer, but Borders being the coach in question was \u201cindependently confirmed through a source,\u201d per the report. <\/p>\n

An Auburn spokesperson told AL.com that an assistant coach attending another conference tournament is a \u201cpermissible activity.\u201d Auburn did not identify Borders as the coach present at the ASUN tournament game, but did provide the following rules clarification to AL.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cA basketball staff member attending another conference\u2019s basketball tournament would not be prohibited by 11.6 (Scouting of Opponents) since it is unlikely\/impossible to be a future opponent at this time of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cStaff (who are not permissible off-campus recruiters) may observe\/evaluate only student\u2011athletes NOT in the transfer portal. Which means, if any participating student\u2011athlete has entered the transfer portal (and becomes a PSA), all recruiting legislation applies\u2014including recruiting periods, counting evaluations, contact restrictions on the day of competition, and permissible recruiters.”<\/p>\n

In separate tweet from his initial complaint, Leonard claimed that the game attended by the SEC coach was Queens\u2019 ASUN tournament quarterfinal matchup with West Georgia on March 6. Leonard also did not name the player who was allegedly being watched.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our coaching fraternity, it\u2019s almost like the bar association,\u201d Leonard told The Observer. \u201cWe have to police ourselves. And this is a road I don\u2019t think we as coaches want to go down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard told The Observer that he\u2019s not against players utilizing the transfer portal and supports his players \u201cgetting life-changing money,\u201d but believes this situation is an example of a team trying to \u201ccoax\u201d a player into entering the portal.<\/p>\n

Queens and Auburn faced each other earlier in the regular season, a game Auburn won 106-65 on Dec. 29. The only way they could play each other again is if they met in the NCAA tournament, which Queens qualified for by winning the ASUN tournament.<\/p>\n

Borders is in his first season as an assistant coach at Auburn after spending the prior seven seasons as the program\u2019s Director of Scouting and Recruiting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Queens head basketball coach Grant Leonard accused an unnamed SEC coach of buying a courtside seat to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-162408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162408","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=162408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}