Shoe money trial

[NewtonHawk11]

Creighton and TCU brought up today involving bribes.

TCU is one that hasn't been brought up before, I don't believe.

[jfish26]

At this point, self-reporting or self-imposing punishments is a fireable offense for an AD or coach.

^^^

I think these is among the foremost of issues that will he tested going forward. If the NCAA is going to have no consideration for any good faith or self-reporting, then what are they gonna do when every school just denies, denies, denies?

As of right now, they're going to tell you that that denial is good, thanks. They said exactly as much when explaining the Mizzou penalties.

[holidaysmore]

Creighton and TCU brought up today involving bribes.

TCU is one that hasn't been brought up before, I don't believe.

Are the birds starting to sing?

Really goes to show either how dumb these coaches are or how much it was accepted to pay players. All of these coaches are talking and texting about it like it is NOTHING.

[jfish26]

Creighton and TCU brought up today involving bribes.

TCU is one that hasn't been brought up before, I don't believe.

Are the birds starting to sing?

Really goes to show either how dumb these coaches are or how much it was accepted to pay players. All of these coaches are talking and texting about it like it is NOTHING.

It's both, right?

Alot of college basketball coaches seem caught in a Catch-22. If they don't win, they get fired. To win, they need great players. To recruit great players, they may have to offer them illegal inducements. If they get caught doing that, they get fired. It's a vicious circle.

[...]

[The coach] has never cheated on the recruiting rules and he doesn't want to start now. But the walls are closing in on him. He's after some hot high school prospects who are fairly frank about their requirements. "The way I see it," says one towering prospect from French Lick, Ind. (Larry Bird's hometown), "I'm a white, blue chip prospect and I think that should be worth about $30,000. In one of those athletic bags." Plus a new tractor for his dad's farm. A black inner-city kid from Chicago has a mom who would like a decent job, and a home with a lawn.

[...]

The underlying theme, I think, is that since top-level intercollegiate athletic programs are profit centers for their universities and feeding programs for the pro leagues, maybe the players should be paid, and the pretense of amateurism dropped. Look at the once-amateur Olympics.

[...]

Is there a national championship collegiate athletic program anywhere in the country that can truthfully say all of its recruiting was done entirely within the official guidelines? Just asking.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blue-chips-1994

[Sparko]

Without some leveler, a few schools would have every imaginable advantage in recruiting. Like in football. I am about done with college sports. This year's NCAA basketball quality was pretty dismal. The NCAA is on the precipice of making men's BB as lopsided as the unwatchable women's side.

[Lonestarjayhawk]

"">


Hitting the fan at LSU...

[jfish26]

Just a helpful reminder: this sort of stuff gets squashed out of existence if you give the players direct (and reported and taxed and monitored and regulated) access to the value they're very obviously generating.

Meet Martin Fox, the mysterious Houston sports fixture caught up in the college bribery scandal

https://sports.yahoo.com/a-whole-new-wo ... 41886.html

Fox is widely known across the AAU and college basketball world. Now that the 62-year-old hoops gadfly has been charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering, his murky role within the sport is under scrutiny.

"He was a known person," said Sonny Vaccaro, a godfather of the sneaker business, "but it was unknown exactly what he did."

The FBI says it knows one thing Fox did: facilitating academic fraud as a middleman funneling bribes from the head of a shady college-prep company in California to a standardized test administrator in Houston and to the tennis coach at the University of Texas. In the U.S. Attorney's indictment that was unsealed Tuesday, Fox is alleged to have funneled money from William "Rick" Singer to Lisa "Niki" Williams to arrange for students to earn sufficiently high marks on the ACT to be admitted to elite universities.

Thus, the question arises: If Fox was adept at funneling money to fix tests for these children, was he doing the same for the myriad teenage basketball stars he associated with in the Houston area? The government might like to know. So might the NCAA.

[...]

Fox's relationship with college athletics is more nebulous. He's been described in media reports as the "general manager" of AAU basketball power Houston Hoops. He's also interacted with some of the top players to come out of that talent-rich city in recent years, including former Duke star Justise Winslow, former Kansas star Kelly Oubre and former Kentucky star De'Aaron Fox (no relation) — all of whom became first-round NBA draft picks after a single season of college ball.

Fox sat behind Virginia Tech's bench for the Hokies' final regular-season game with Miami in Blacksburg, Virginia, on Friday night. Virginia Tech’s Buzz Williams is one of many college coaches close to Fox and told the story Wednesday night that when he introduced his son to Fox, his son asked, "'What does he do, is he a coach?'" Williams said, "I'd say no. He's in the middle of everything." He added, "I didn't know he was in the middle of that," referencing the federal trouble.

This isn't the first time Fox's name has come up recently in relation to a federal corruption investigation. During the first college basketball fraud trial in October, so-called Adidas "bag man" T.J. Gassnola testified that Fox wired him $40,000, which Gassnola then withdrew from a bank in cash and flew to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he gave it to a North Carolina State assistant basketball coach. Gassnola testified it was a "payment to Dennis Smith's family." Dennis Smith Jr. played one season at NC State before becoming the ninth pick of the 2017 draft.

Gassnola testified that he repaid Fox a month later. But that loan and the relationship with Gassnola creates a compelling snapshot of Fox as an alleged fixer who transcends levels, the kind of guy a bag man can call for a $40,000 loan to deliver as "cash in an envelope" to an assistant coach to appease the family of a future lottery pick.

"Everyone likes him," said a longtime acquaintance of Fox's with deep ties to the sport. "Martin's a nice guy and he'd do anything to help you. But for some reason he's made his whole being on the underbelly of college basketball."

[...]

This is a well-worn narrative: Noted basketball middleman with heavy influence in the basketball recruiting world gets arrested and faces serious charges and dozens of college coaches around the sport are holding their breath, wondering what he'll tell federal authorities. It's not a new storyline in a scandal-scarred sport, but this Tuesday bombshell from the feds added another layer to the saga.

He's had dealings in the latter stages of this season with Kansas coach Bill Self, sources told Yahoo Sports. He's close enough to twins David and Dana Pump, long known as dabblers in the AAU, event and ticket world, to be known as the "Third Pump Brother." It's not a compliment.

[Deleted User 183]

Going to be really tough for the NCAA going forward.
If they are legit, there won't be a tournament next year.

[jfish26]

I honestly cannot fathom why Bill would continue to associate with people like this. At the very latest, that shit should have stopped the instant we figured out that pushing Preston's case a moment longer was a bad idea.

[kubowler99]

I'm not saying Bill's 100% clean, but wtf does 'dealings in the latter part of this year' mean, exactly?

If I had to guess, that means Bill was asking about a kid on his Houston AAU team.

JFish - it sounds like in the cbb world, when recruiting elite athletes, you're dealing with these types of people most, if not all, of the time. I'm not sure it can be avoided and still get top-flight talent. That doesn't mean if you deal with them you're taking bribes, but if you want great players...these people are going to be in the middle of it.

[jfish26]

I'm not saying Bill's 100% clean, but wtf does 'dealings in the latter part of this year' mean, exactly?

If I had to guess, that means Bill was asking about a kid on his Houston AAU team.

JFish - it sounds like in the cbb world, when recruiting elite athletes, you're dealing with these types of people most, if not all, of the time. I'm not sure it can be avoided and still get top-flight talent. That doesn't mean if you deal with them you're taking bribes, but if you want great players...these people are going to be in the middle of it.

Oh, the reference should be taken with a grain of salt (particularly given the byline of the story).

I would just think that, at this particular point in time, Bill would stay miles and miles away from this kind of thing.

[Leawood]

Compared to what it was decades ago, today's college athletics is as pure as driven snow. Wilt drove a Cadillac convertible for Pete's sake.

[Deleted User 183]

Compared to what it was decades ago, today's college athletics is as pure as driven snow. Wilt drove a Cadillac convertible for Pete's sake.

FWIW - https://www.hoopszone.net/Kansas/Kansas ... 201962.htm

[hartjack8]

NCAA sends investigator to look into Kansas football and men's basketball programs

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footb ... -programs/
Football????

[Lonestarjayhawk]

Football was self reported. Trying to find Beaty dirty so they don't have to pay him $3 million. Seems like a petty way of dealing with the deal.

[CrimsonNBlue]

Quietly last night news broke that Gatto was ordered to pay KU $161k in restitution. #victims

[Geezer]

Quietly last night news broke that Gatto was ordered to pay KU $161k in restitution. #victims

bizarre.

[NewtonHawk11]

VICTIMS!

[jfish26]

Quietly last night news broke that Gatto was ordered to pay KU $161k in restitution. #victims

So, can we afford to pay Beaty now? Please?

[Deleted User 266]

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-baske ... ry-scandal