Sean Miller is considered one of the nation’s 10 best coaches. He won at Xavier and has won at Arizona. Whenever we media types are thinking who might be the next guy at one of the sport’s tentpole programs – the guy after Calipari at Lexington or Ol’ Roy in Chapel Hill – Miller’s name always arises.
(Last spring’s cool/weird rumor: That Archie Miller had turned down North Carolina State because he didn’t want to wind up working 26 miles from his big brother. Archie M. has since exited Dayton for Indiana.)
Sean Miller is universally regarded as the best working coach never to reach a Final Four. After today's ESPN report by esteemed former colleague Mark Schlabach, Miller might never get there.
Schlabach’s first sentence: “FBI wiretaps intercepted telephone conversations between Arizona coach Sean Miller and Christian Dawkins, a key figure in the FBI's investigation into college basketball corruption, in which Miller discussed paying $100,000 to ensure star freshman Deandre Ayton signed with the Wildcats, sources familiar with the government's evidence told ESPN.”
Arizona is ranked No. 14 in the Associated Press poll. It leads the Pac-12. It is projected by ESPN's Joe Lunardi as an NCAA tournament No. 4 seed. Ayton could well be the best player in the land. His participation in the Big Dance is now in question. So is Miller's. So is Arizona's.
Go back to Schlabach's first two words – "FBI wiretaps." If you're wondering why those of us who track college basketball have expected the absolute worst from this investigation, word of which arrived with a jolt last September, there it is. The NCAA can't do wiretaps. The NCAA can barely tie its shoelaces. The FBI can do more than hit somebody with a show-cause sanction. The FBI can put your carcass in jail.
And now there’s apparently a recording of a major coach at a major school, discussing a possible payment of $100,000 to secure the services of a major recruit. We don’t yet know if any money changed hands, but ESPN’s report suggests that Arizona wasn’t above dipping its toe in the swamp.
Yesterday's missive addressing the Yahoo Sports report that began to name names ended with the warning, "This ain't all, folks." The next 10 could end with those same words.
About the Author
