Losing out on a recruit is fine with San Diego State head coach Steve Fisher, but the way he lost out on forward Kevin Young is what upset the Aztec coach. Young sat out last year and focused on academics at San Bernadino Community College and previously was at Loyola Marymount.
Young agreed to play with San Diego State back in November, but now he is heading to play basketball with the Kansas Jayhawks. Since college athletes can only sign on letter-of-intent, Young signed a financial aid agreement which binds the school to the player but not vice versa. The reason for the frustration with Fisher losing out on Young to Kansas is because Young is expected to be an immediate impact player, and that is something the Aztecs could use with them losing Kawhi Leonard and Malcolm Thomas to the NBA -- well Thomas is expected to be drafted. Young could have been a player to help the Aztecs keep pace with New Mexico and UNLV in the 2011-12 season.
Fisher is also mad at Kansas for going after a player who has been a long-time commit:
"I'm disappointed that a young man who I am very fond of would not feel an obligation to honor an eight-month commitment," Aztecs coach Steve Fisher said. "And I'm equally disappointed in a program and coach I'm very fond of to pursue a player who made an eight-month commitment."
Of course Bill Self was not going to take those words lightly from Fisher and stressed that Young had de-commited from San Diego State:
"I don't blame coach Fisher for being disappointed at all because Kevin did commit to them," Self said, "but Kevin also told them he wasn't going to San Diego State before we recruited him, so we didn't steal him from San Diego State by any stretch.
"We would not have recruited Kevin if he was committed to San Diego State. He did de-commit from them before we pursued him at all. We did not recruit him until after he de-committed," KU's coach stressed.
There seems to be a minor loophole here within the NCAA (insert your own joke here about the NCAA and loopholes, my preference would be a Cam Newton mention) where a player can only sign one letter-of-intent. Since Young was not able to sign an letter-of-intent and school could still go after him even though he signed the financial aid offer from San Diego State.
There is no course of action that Fisher can take, and the loss of Young is bigger then just losing him because the Aztecs turned down a few other talented players.