Developing story: NCAA fraud and corruption probe

[Swan88]

The Arizona coach is better at this game than the other schools involved.  

Over the past several years, here are the four- and five-star commits Arizona has listed by Rivals:

Year    5-Stars   4-stars

2015        3             1

2016        3             3

2017        2             3

2018        2              1

 

I think most of the other teams involved got gypped and should be asking for their money back.

Auburn, for example, has only 3 five-star commits in recent times: 2 in 2016 and 1 for 2018.   

And neither USC nor Okie St. has a single 5-star listed by Rivals for any recent year: nary a single one! 

Edited September 26, 2017 by Swan88

[basketballjones]

Can someone find a way to freebase this and allow me to put it straight into my veins? Such a vindictive high I'm getting right now. 

[Norm Peterson]

57 minutes ago, Swan88 said:

The Arizona coach is better at this game than the other schools involved.  

Over the past several years, here are the four- and five-star commits Arizona has listed by Rivals:

Year    5-Stars   4-stars

2015        3             1

2016        3             3

2017        2             3

2018        2              1

 

I think most of the other teams involved got gypped and should be asking for their money back.

Auburn, for example, has only 3 five-star commits in recent times: 2 in 2016 and 1 for 2018.   

And neither USC nor Okie St. has a single 5-star listed by Rivals for any recent year: nary a single one! 

 

Auburn especially has a right to bitch:  "You told us if we took Matt Atewe for a year you'd get us two 5-star commits every year for the next five!  This was a ripoff!"

 

 

(Sorry, Swan, I had to.)

[AuroranHusker]

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Ronnie Green said he is aware of the federal investigation that ensnared an Adidas executive accused of arranging payments to college basketball prospects.

 

Green said NU has not been contacted by the FBI or any other federal authorities...

 

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/nebraska-aware-of-adidas-bribery-scandal-has-not-been-contacted/article_1408de0c-a2ef-11e7-92ed-db118045b037.html

[Norm Peterson]

What was it Devaney said?  Something like he didn't want to be so good that we'd be put on probation but he did want us to at least be good enough to warrant an investigation?

 

I have to say it kind of speaks well for Tom Izzo that the Louisville player didn't wind up there and basically eliminated MSU while he was still considering ... Creighton?

 

Wait, WTF kind of sense does that make?  Why would you eliminate Izzo and MSU yet still have Creighton on your list until you wind up at Louisville because Adidas people paid your momma $100,000?

 

It speaks well for Izzo in that he obviously wasn't willing to pay to play.

 

But it suddenly explains why Creighton was all of a sudden "killing it" (as some around here claimed) on the recruiting trail.

 

Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

[Norm Peterson]

Makes you wonder if the reason Justin Patton never considered another school was because the check had already been cashed.

[Cazzie22]

To paraphrase Jerry Tarkanian, the NCAA will be so mad at Louisville that they will put Cleveland State on probation.   The shoe/apparel companies and AAU coaches have stooped into the gutter and slime to get players to go to endorsed universities for years.  AAU is a fraud.

[bleujay]

1 hour ago, Norm Peterson said:

What was it Devaney said?  Something like he didn't want to be so good that we'd be put on probation but he did want us to at least be good enough to warrant an investigation?

 

I have to say it kind of speaks well for Tom Izzo that the Louisville player didn't wind up there and basically eliminated MSU while he was still considering ... Creighton?

 

Wait, WTF kind of sense does that make?  Why would you eliminate Izzo and MSU yet still have Creighton on your list until you wind up at Louisville because Adidas people paid your momma $100,000?

 

It speaks well for Izzo in that he obviously wasn't willing to pay to play.

 

But it suddenly explains why Creighton was all of a sudden "killing it" (as some around here claimed) on the recruiting trail.

 

Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

your timeline on Bowen's recruiting process is mixed up. He never released a final list, MSU and Creighton were technically involved until he committed to Louisville. "Suddenly killing it"? What do you mean by this. We have upgraded our talent level after moving to a basketball power conference with more national exposure? 

[Chuck Taylor]

2 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

What was it Devaney said?  Something like he didn't want to be so good that we'd be put on probation but he did want us to at least be good enough to warrant an investigation?

 

I have to say it kind of speaks well for Tom Izzo that the Louisville player didn't wind up there and basically eliminated MSU while he was still considering ... Creighton?

 

Wait, WTF kind of sense does that make?  Why would you eliminate Izzo and MSU yet still have Creighton on your list until you wind up at Louisville because Adidas people paid your momma $100,000?

 

It speaks well for Izzo in that he obviously wasn't willing to pay to play.

 

But it suddenly explains why Creighton was all of a sudden "killing it" (as some around here claimed) on the recruiting trail.

 

Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

You don't have anything, so not sure why you're going there. Our Adidas connection also might make you go hmmmmmmm.

[Norm Peterson]

Some people have no frickin sense of humor.

[Swan88]

The five-star kid that went to Louisville was, apparently, in a bidding war that Louisville won.  Here is a news report:

 

"At one point, a sum of money was agreed upon between the company and the player believed to be Bowen, but a “rival apparel company” ended up coming in with more money. One of the men involved in the scheme allegedly talked to another coach at the school about obtaining more money. That’s reportedly when Gatto and Adidas stepped in and raised the offer."

[49r]

19 minutes ago, Chuck Taylor said:

You don't have anything, so not sure why you're going there. Our Adidas connection also might make you go hmmmmmmm.

 

If we were recruiting (and landing) one and done types it might be cause to think twice...but, alas, we aren't.

 

But this is all just a riff on a post @Swan88 made earlier in the day (implicating NU as a program that could raise eyebrows due to their sudden uptick in recruiting over the past 3 or 4 years).  My response in that thread - which I only assume is what @Norm Peterson is building on here - is that while that may be true the types of kids we are landing at NU really aren't that much of an upgrade over what we've been historically recruiting really.  However, the team up the road, well, they're swimming in a totally different pool of recruits than they were just a few years ago as a relatively anonymous program on the national stage.

 

That's all.  It's a lame attempt at humor, not any kind of indictment.

[HuskerFever]

Our program is pulling long hours and trying to go through all the steps to get a player eligible. Meanwhile, other teams are paying big money for recruits. I know we all know this sort of stuff has been going on at the high school and college level, but something seems wrong here.

[Bugeaters1]

43 minutes ago, Swan88 said:

The five-star kid that went to Louisville was, apparently, in a bidding war that Louisville won.  Here is a news report:

 

"At one point, a sum of money was agreed upon between the company and the player believed to be Bowen, but a “rival apparel company” ended up coming in with more money. One of the men involved in the scheme allegedly talked to another coach at the school about obtaining more money. That’s reportedly when Gatto and Adidas stepped in and raised the offer."

 

[The Polish Rifle]

7 minutes ago, 49r said:

 

If we were recruiting (and landing) one and done types it might be cause to think twice...but, alas, we aren't.

 

But this is all just a riff on a post @Swan88 made earlier in the day (implicating NU as a program that could raise eyebrows due to their sudden uptick in recruiting over the past 3 or 4 years).  My response in that thread - which I only assume is what @Norm Peterson is building on here - is that while that may be true the types of kids we are landing at NU really aren't that much of an upgrade over what we've been historically recruiting really.  However, the team up the road, well, they're swimming in a totally different pool of recruits than they were just a few years ago as a relatively anonymous program on the national stage.

 

That's all.  It's a lame attempt at humor, not any kind of indictment.

The one thing that would scare me if I were a Creighton fan, is that Bowen is probably the main piece of this investigation. So they were following him pretty darn close, and CU had a lot of contact with him. If I were a fan I would just hope that the staff wasn't even blurring any lines, because the FBI will probably have those conversations.

[Chuck Taylor]

45 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

Some people have no frickin sense of humor.

Some people need to get a frickin life beyond a message board. 

[49r]

10 minutes ago, The Polish Rifle said:

The one thing that would scare me if I were a Creighton fan, is that Bowen is probably the main piece of this investigation. So they were following him pretty darn close, and CU had a lot of contact with him. If I were a fan I would just hope that the staff wasn't even blurring any lines, because the FBI will probably have those conversations.

 

Right?  And I doubt that Louisville was the first place he was offered money to commit to.  The whole process kinda had that "bidding war" feel to it.  If there was ONE school on his list that I would totally believe was on the up and up recruiting him it's Michigan State.  The rest?  I wouldn't put it past them.

[Huskerpapa]

When I was in college, I had a philosophy class and we discussed the subject of college basketball.  The question was how to turn around a program.  Would it be worth cheating to build your program.  If you don't get caught, you are on the top of the basketball world and you have no consequences other than moral bankruptcy.  If you get caught, you get your hand slapped by the NCAA, you serve an absurdly short probation, and you will still have a top basketball program...and moral bankruptcy.  The other alternative is to put in work, attempt to recruit against everyone else who is taking the first option.  I think a lot of college coaches were in that course with me.

 

And oh yeah, if Mickey Mouse always war shorts with no shirt, why did Donald Duck where shirts with no pants???

[rr52]

ASM offices were one of the places raided by FBI today. ASM represents Justin Patton.

ASM has 38 clients with $485,350,000 contract value.

This info from OWH reporter Jon Nyatawa.

Also reading elsewhere that Josh Jackson was a heavy lean to Michigan St. before selecting Kansas and also some questions regarding Andrew Wiggins commitment.

There are some college basketball coaches that will not get a very good nights sleep tonight or for the foreseeable future. FBI taking same route that it uses to get crime families. Nab a few small fish to get them to roll over on the big ones.

This is going to get real interesting. NU better grab an AD while they are only ones looking because there are some AD's that will be out of jobs as well. 

[bleujay]

i'd be interested if it ever came out how the amount of $$$ involved in a deal for a player correlates to their national ranking. i'd guess that at a certain threshold of talent, the 'extra money' in the equation drops off significantly or completely disappears. it would then stand to reason that the schools that have the most to worry about are those which, year in and year out, pick from a highly exclusive pool of potential nba first rounders (the players that end up netting a ton of money for everyone involved in the deal)....how much does the 70th best player stand to receive in a bribe, compared to the 15th best?

 

i doubt darian devries or steve merfeld involved themselves in this type of nonsense. Preston Murphy, I could see it just because of how connected he is to a lot of AAU programs on the east coast. Is the AAU culture to blame? Or the shoe companies that encourage these deals to get done? regardless, its been established for awhile that blue bloods were, directly or indirectly, offering their players a little extra. I wouldn't put it past the majority of power conf. schools to have engaged in at least one of these deals in the past

[bleujay]

Patton really doesn't seem relevant to the discussion. If he signed for the sake of money, why didn't he go elsewhere (a football school) that could have easily offered more. That doesn't add up to me.

[Norm Peterson]

1 hour ago, Chuck Taylor said:

Some people need to get a frickin life beyond a message board. 

 

Wooooo.  Shots fired.  

[Norm Peterson]

6 minutes ago, bleujay said:

Patton really doesn't seem relevant to the discussion. If he signed for the sake of money, why didn't he go elsewhere (a football school) that could have easily offered more. That doesn't add up to me.

 

He should have done what smart people do: Wait until you have competing offers and then let the bidding start.  Instead, he cashed the first check and ... 

 

... the rest is history.  Theoretically speaking.

[rr52]

11 minutes ago, bleujay said:

Patton really doesn't seem relevant to the discussion. If he signed for the sake of money, why didn't he go elsewhere (a football school) that could have easily offered more. That doesn't add up to me.

It's not just about what the school may offer but  what the "prospective" client signing with a shoe company, agent and financial manager can bring in.

I don't think there is any wrong doing just repeating what Nyatawa tweeted.

Edited September 27, 2017 by rr52

[bleujay]

12 minutes ago, rr52 said:

It's not just about what the school may offer but  what the "prospective" client signing with a shoe company, agent and financial manager can bring in.

I don't think there is any wrong doing just repeating what Nyatawa tweeted.

fair enough. I don't really see us being big enough to swing deals with adidas or nike. UA, I could see it