The belief in college basketball circles has long been that the FBI's investigation into recruiting, agents and shoe companies had only begun to yield its rotten fruit. Early Friday morning, Pat Forde and Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports began naming names. They're massive names.
From Forde/Thamel: “There’s potential impermissible benefits and preferential treatment for players and families of players at Duke, North Carolina, Texas, Kentucky, Michigan State, USC, Alabama and a host of other schools. The documents link some of the sport’s biggest current stars – Michigan State’s Miles Bridges, Alabama’s Collin Sexton and Duke’s Wendell Carter Jr. – to specific potential extra benefits for either the athletes or their family members. The amounts tied to players in the case range from basic meals to tens of thousands of dollars.”
(Schools also mentioned: Kansas, Xavier, Virginia, Wichita State, Villanova, Notre Dame, South Carolina, Clemson, Maryland, LSU, Washington, Utah, Creighton and Seton Hall.)
The three biggest programs in college basketball are Duke, Kentucky and North Carolina. They’re on the list. Local angles: Sexton played at Pebblebrook, Carter at Pace Academy. Note: They’re on the list – and so is Malcolm Brogdon, who played at Greater Atlanta Christian and then Virginia -- because documents indicate they or their families “met or had meals with” agent Christian Dawkins of ASM Sports.
The Yahoo story quotes Atlanta lawyer Stu Brown: “There’s nothing wrong with meeting with an agent. But then it becomes a question of who pays for the meal.”
More findings, via ASM documents: Dennis Smith, who played one season at North Carolina State, received $73,500; Bam Adebayo, who played last season at Kentucky, received either $12,000 or $36,500; Diamond Stone, who played one season at Maryland, received $14,303; P.J. Dozier, who played on South Carolina’s Final Four team last season, received $6,115.
How might this roil March Madness? At least two programs among the favorites to win it all – Duke and Michigan State – must now decide whether the eligibility of two high-profile players (Carter and Bridges) has been compromised.
The weeks ahead could hearken to the dark days of the NBA/ABA wars, when college players were asked to file affidavits swearing they hadn’t signed with agents. This reached its nadir in 1971, when two Final Four qualifiers – runner-up Villanova and third-place Western Kentucky – saw their tournament participation vacated. The NCAA found that Villanova’s Howard Porter and WKU’s Jim McDaniels, affidavits be damned, had indeed rendered themselves ineligible.
Three days ago, the NCAA denied Louisville's appeal to keep its 2013 NCAA championship, which the Cardinals won at the Georgia Dome. That marked the first time an NCAA basketball title has been vacated. Of note: Tony Bradley, who played for North Carolina's 2017 championship team, is mentioned regarding Dawkins.
On cue, NCAA president/gasbag Mark Emmert released a statement: "These allegations, if true, point to systematic failures that must be fixed and fixed now if we want college sports in America." (Toward that end, this correspondent just offered an Rx.)
The Forde/Thamel report included this ominous line: “Yahoo did not view all of the documents in the three criminal cases tied to the investigation.” Meaning: This ain’t all, folks.
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