Tag: NCAA (Page 1 of 2)

Obviously I’m reaching a bit with my subject line. For it to work you have to imagine it is one of the geniuses at the NCAA asking the question when they realize that after six years of investigation and invective and irritation the biggest outcome of their inquiry into the Kansas basketball program is that the second half of the Jayhawks’ 2018 season, when Silvio de Sousa played, gets wiped from the record books. NCAA officials will soon arrive at homes of KU fans to confiscate our 2018 Final Four t-shirts, because Malik Newman never dropped 32 on Duke in the Elite Eight.[1]

All things considered, I’m fine removing a Final Four banner in exchange for closing this chapter and moving on. Pretty much everything about this case went KU’s way. Well, other than taking six years and wrecking multiple recruiting classes. All KU did with those “subpar” recruiting classes was be the pre-Covid favorite to win the title in 2020 and win a national championship in 2022.

This case came down to overreach by the NCAA, simple and plain. Was there evidence that Bill Self and his staff were aware that Adidas was funneling money to players? Yes, but not nearly as compelling evidence as other schools that were involved in this round of investigations. But KU also turned in Billy Preston before he ever played a game at Kansas, Zion Williamson went to Duke, and DeAndre Ayton went to Arizona.[2] Silvio de Sousa was the only player involved in the investigation that actually played for the Jayhawks. And, as some salty KU fans pointed out, the NCAA had vetted his eligibility not once but twice, each time ruling him fit to play.

The biggest takeaway from all of this is that these sham NCAA “investigations” into player eligibility are as bogus as when schools say they’ve done a “thorough review” of a player’s status and cleared them to play. Very odd that despite, again, TWO different NCAA reviews of de Sousa’s status, they gave him the green light to play each time yet he’s the basis of the most significant penalties against the Jayhawks. Seems like some of those investigators should go on probation.

We knew this was coming, though. The NCAA’s IARP group had already let Arizona, LSU, Louisville, and North Carolina State off with minimal penalties. There was no way Kansas, with far less concrete evidence against them, would get hammered.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t worried. The NCAA has taken a lot of fire in the press for this entire process. I did fear that with KU being last on the list, the NCAA might put its thumb on the scales and overrule what the independent investigation group presented to them. Those worries were fueled by multiple rumors that at different times over the past two years KU and the IARP had presented the NCAA with what amounted to plea deals, and the NCAA had rejected them. This was the NCAA’s final chance to save face in a moment when every aspect of their authority over college sports is being questioned.

Fortunately sanity ruled the day.

The penalties added to what KU had already implemented are not insignificant. In addition to KU’s 2018 Final Four, the school loses 15 wins, knocking them back behind Kentucky in the all-time wins list.[3] Plus they lose their 14th consecutive Big 12 title, a Big 12 tournament title, and their all-time best NCAA appearance streak actually ended in 2017. That may not satisfy the haters, but in a sport that is hyper aware of all the history it is built upon, those are clear media guide touch points that KU can no longer claim.

Sorry, I can’t say that with a straight face. None of that history book shit matters. We all saw KU beat Duke in the ’18 Elite Eight (and Villanova destroy KU a week later in the Final Four). We saw Devonté Graham’s crazy shot crawl in during the final minute against Texas Tech to clinch the Big 12 title. We all saw Graham and Newman hit shot after shot in the second half of the Big 12 tournament championship game against West Virginia. All those games might be removed from the official record, or stamped with an asterisk, but that doesn’t erase the memories of what we watched.

We Jayhawk fans should be counting our blessings and thanking the Hoops Gods today that the NCAA is too incompetent to run an investigation properly. There was plenty of evidence to hammer KU. As I’ve said many times over the past six years, I have zero doubt that Self (and the other head coaches involved in the investigation) was well aware of what Adidas was doing. Just as all the Nike coaches knew how Nike was assisting their recruiting efforts, no matter how much they insist otherwise. From all accounts that don’t come from mouthpieces of the NCAA, though, the organization handled every aspect of these investigations terribly. They overreached. They moved the goalposts throughout the process. Their initial charges were based on cherry picked evidence from the federal cases against Adidas employees, which each school could easily counter with other evidence both presented in those federal trials and accepted by the juries and judges as fact. The IARP being run by attorneys rather than NCAA employees made bringing a half-assed case a losing bet.

After six years we’re finally done. KU is still eligible to play in this year’s tournament, and every tournament going forward. Bill Self gets to keep his job. Other than a few recruiting restrictions over the next couple years, the worst penalties are all in the past. Seems like a pretty good deal for the Jayhawks.

I might have to wear my 2018 Final Four shirt to the gym today.

Your defending national champion Kansas Jayhawks play their first exhibition game tonight. Seems like some hoop thoughts are in order.

KU and the NCAA

The saga continues its glacial slide towards a resolution.

Wednesday KU announced that it was imposing various penalties, ranging from Bill Self and Kurtis Townsend being suspended for four games (reflecting an NCAA mandate for being found guilty of a Level 1 violation), to recruiting limitations, to reducing scholarships. A lot of people found it strange that KU did this on a Wednesday, the day before the first exhibition game, when any final verdict from the NCAA’s IARP group isn’t expected until after this season ends.

I think we figured out some of the explanation for the timing on Thursday, when the IARP’s ruling in the Louisville case was released. The minor penalties that UL received make KU’s self-imposed consequences seem pretty solid. KU’s statement said that the self-imposed penalties were implemented in consultation with the NCAA and IARP. Throw in the IARP’s statement that they believed that the Adidas agents were acting indecently and looking to promote the Adidas brand rather than the Louisville brand, and KU fans have to be letting out a massive sigh of relief.

Maybe I’ll be proven to be super, duper wrong, but I would expect when the IARP finally releases its final report on the KU investigation, there won’t be any additional, major punishment.[1] It seems, based on their comments in their rulings on North Carolina State, Memphis, and Louisville that they believe the FBI and federal jury more than their NCAA bosses, and aren’t going to punish schools for being a part of a mess the NCAA helped to create.

Expanding the Tournament

Dumb.

I think the way this is being framed for the public is very interesting. While coaches from Power 5 schools have tread rather lightly around the subject – it seems like they are cautiously interested but don’t want to go too far out on a limb – we are hearing more strongly from mid-major coaches. They often use the word “opportunity” in their arguments for expanding the NCAA tournament beyond its current 68 teams.

Don’t fall for it.

The whole reason for this expansion is to protect Power 5 schools as their home conferences get bigger and bigger. Coaches and athletic directors are realizing that if they are playing in leagues filled with 16, 18, eventually 20 teams, it’s going to be harder to get a team that goes 8–12 in conference play into the tournament. Expanding the tournament is all about making sure the Big 10 and SEC can still get three-quarters of their teams into the Big Dance after they expand.

Ironically I think expanding the Power 5 conferences will open up more spots in the current tournament for Mid Majors, as those schools that go 25–3 but lose in their conference tournament will look a lot better compared to a crappy Penn State team that went 15–15 and got blasted in the Big 10.

Oh and it’s about money. It’s always about money.

NIL

I think I promised an NIL-focused post all summer. I wrote drafts at least four times, but each time I would sit down to go through it again, there had been some huge NIL development that rendered some of my words pointless.

So rather than break down the entire system I’ll share my over-arching thought about how NIL has affected college athletics.

That thought is this is exactly what the NCAA deserves. The organization stuck to the immoral argument that colleges are free to profit directly off the name and image likenesses of their players without giving over any of that cash to the actual athletes for decades. Michigan could make a bundle selling Chris Webber jerseys, but he could never see a dime of that because college athletics are “amateur” sports. Never mind that anyone who has been to an AAU tournament in the past 30 years knows that the players who fill most Power 5 basketball rosters haven’t been amateurs for years. UCLA could get a healthy portion of the payout from EA Sports for its players appearing in EA games, but Ed O’Bannon could not be compensated for his picture being on the cover of the game.

O’Bannon’s argument in his lawsuit against the NCAA was purely about these issues: if a school sells a jersey with a player’s number on it, that player should see some of the profits. If NCAA athletes names are used in a video game, they should get some of the money the developers paid to the NCAA/institutions.

If the NCAA had just caved on this point, even slightly, it would have saved itself two decades of legal expenses, attention from Congress, and the intervention of state legislatures. Instead, they dug in their heels until the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against them and state legislatures began enacting their own protections for athletes’ NIL rights, rights that varied from state-to-state.

The result is a system with zero oversight and, basically, zero rules. At least initially. Most schools have set up some kind of collective that funnels money to its players. Billionaire donors are shoveling out money just to get kids to sign with their alma maters.

This is not what NIL was supposed to be about. It was supposed to be about kids getting a portion of jersey sales, a slice of the money video game developers paid out, and the right to appear in ads and make some money.

I honestly think we would have avoided the Wild West system we have now had the NCAA not been so ridiculously intransigent. Instead they are busy trying to cram the toothpaste back into the tube as their power weakens.

The NCAA’s days are numbered; it is an outdate, out-of-touch organization that has no interest of changing with the times. They have no one but themselves to blame either for their demise, or for the mess that NIL has become.

Actual KU Hoops

We’ll get a proper Jayhawk Talk post after they play some real games. I’m excited to see them play tonight. I imagine it will be less stressful than the last time I watched them play.

As always there are a lot of questions about the team. Can Gradey Dick live up to the hype and become a big-time contributor from day one? Can one of the freshmen bigs, or Zach Clemence, be effective inside on either end of the court? Can Jalen Wilson take his game to the next level? Can Kevin McCullar rediscover the shooting stroke that he lost after getting injured last year? McCullar and DaJuan Harris will make for an awesome defensive pair. Can the rest of the team match their level of play? Will there be enough outside shooting? What players will transfer out after this year?[2]

I think the Jayhawks may look uglier than normal for the first two months of the season as they try to answer these, and other questions. I expect a lot of games in the low 60’s. There is plenty of upside and the biggest question is can all those little questions be answered in a way that raises the ceiling for this squad?

KU has a chance to be very good this year. They could also struggle to score all year and end up going only 20–10 or something. I don’t know if National Champions good is on the table. But not many thought that was possible last year, either, so you never know.

I’ve casually mentioned a few times over the years that I have some contacts that are semi-insiders to what is going on with Kansas athletics. One of those contacts had been warning me for months that whenever the NCAA decided to officially weigh in on the Adidas-FBI issues, it was going to be worse than anyone expected.

The NCAA officially spoke yesterday. And on the surface, it was indeed worse that most people expected. They bundled all the things we knew about from the FBI case, added some bullshit football stuff to make it look worse, and threw in both the Lack of Institutional Control and a “responsibility charge” against Bill Self. It does not look good right now.

Before I dive into all of that, I’ll remind you of my stance on this: I don’t believe Bill Self, or any other high level D1 basketball coach, is not somehow directly involved or at a very minimum aware of how the shoe companies pay off recruits. He can say he wasn’t involved; Tom Izzo, Roy Williams, John Calipari, Coach K, etc can all say the same thing. As The Athletic’s Dana O’Neil pointed out this morning, these coaches are aware of every aspect of their players’ lives. To pretend they don’t know about those same kids getting paid by shoe companies is insulting.

And any fan who says, “Well, that doesn’t happen here,” is naive. Not every coach is dirty, but every coach turns their back on things they don’t want to know about to make sure they get the kids they want. And every staff as an assistant who is willing to push a little harder to lock down recruits.

I guess the good thing that came out of yesterday was that the NCAA did not uncover anything that we didn’t already know from the FBI trial. Billy Preston’s mom got paid. Silvio De Sousa’s guardian got paid. The NCAA had six months to dig up more and couldn’t find anything else.

Of course, what they allege is plenty enough. And the battle over these charges is going to be fascinating. KU is going to stand behind the results of the federal trial, in which Adidas’ TJ Gassnola insisted he never informed Self of the payments. The jury seemed to believe Gassnola and the judge awarded damages to KU for being defrauded (which I think is kind of garbage, but whatever).

They will also stand behind KU never letting Preston play and declaring De Sousa ineligible when his name appeared on FBI documents.

The NCAA is going to say you absolutely were aware of the payments before you declared those kids ineligible, Self and/or his assistants facilitated the payments, and you’re going to be punished for that.

I was reading a little about what happens from here and it is really interesting. Basically no one knows what to think because of all the new infractions hearing steps that have been added over the past year or so. Either KU or North Carolina State is going to be the first school the navigate the process, and until they do and we see a final result, we have no idea what the institutional bias is right now. Will the final enforcement hearing lean toward supporting the NCAA’s charges, or will KU’s arguments be compelling enough to roll back what the NCAA is alleging?

I really don’t have a feel for what’s going to happen. There is no doubt the NCAA feels humiliated by getting worked over by North Carolina in their academic scandal investigation and want to show they actually have some control of college sports. While KU fans are bitching about being first in line, there is a long list of schools behind them that are going to bubble up soon. KU’s attorneys are going to rack up a lot of billable hours over the next year or so as the school fights back hard. It is going to be ugly and even if KU escapes the worst of the penalties, recruiting is going to take a hit for at least another year, maybe longer.

Force me to make a prediction, and I say KU will have to vacate every game De Sousa played in during the 2018 season, including the Final Four appearance. KU will lose a couple scholarships over a couple years. Kurtis Townsend takes the bullet and retires. Self will take a suspension of two months or less. KU will manage to avoid a postseason ban. And no one is really happy with the result.

Fans of Nike schools were no doubt laughing when the KU news broke. But what gets lost a little in this is how the NCAA just opened a giant window to nail anyone. By declaring Gassnola a KU booster, should they win they can claim any shoe company employee or representative is a booster for any school they work with. (I just read an opinion from an attorney who suggests this open universities to be held liable for actions of anyone they have a business relationship with.) Suddenly there is a pretty clear path to go after every school that recruits elite players every year. I would imagine Nike coaches are less excited than their fans, and are hoping that their bag men were better about covering their tracks than the Adidas guys were.

Now, how do I feel about all this? I feel pretty meh, to be honest. I’ll fully sign myself up as a hypocrite for enjoying Pitino’s downfall and complaining about what’s taking so long for Sean Miller to really face some heat while hoping Self skates through all of this.

Here’s the thing about college sports, which are my favorite: if you buy into them, you have to buy into the fact that basketball and football are inherently corrupt. From the failure to pass proceeds from billion dollar TV contracts directly to the players, to refusing to allow athletes to profit off of their images while their schools can, to the idea that any kid that spends a couple summers playing AAU basketball is somehow still an amateur, to believing the college football and basketball are also somehow still amateur sports, the whole model is broken. You either give up and start watching pro sports, or you accept it and hope your school doesn’t get pinched.

KU got pinched. I’m rooting hard for the NCAA to lose this one. But if KU does indeed get hammered, I’ll shrug my shoulders and hope the program can recover quickly.

I’m sure this won’t be the last post on this subject…

It is the first kid sick day of the calendar year; C is home with a stomach issue.

Adding to the fun is my back continues to trouble me. It’s not all the way out the way it was on New Year’s Day, but something I’ve done to it has got me on a heavy regimen of ibuprofen and heating pads. Getting old sucks.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the Jayhawks…

Silvio

I’ve been on record all season that Silvio De Sousa would not play for KU again. By that I meant the NCAA would never clear him for this season, he would leave to go pro, end of college career.

Still, a part of me wanted to buy into these rumors that he was on the verge of gaining eligibility over the past few weeks. I mean, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. But with KU in desperate need of another big man, you might as well put some hope into the long shot bet.

That said, I was shocked that the NCAA decided to declare him ineligible for the rest of this season and all of next. Well, kind of shocked. I figured Silvio would be the fall guy for the entire FBI investigation. He was the most high-profile player that still had eligibility at the most high-profile program that has gotten sucked into this mess. And with the coaches affiliated with Nike slowly pleading guilty and avoiding trial, and thus more on-the-record proof of cheating, Silvio was the NCAA’s one shot to take a stand.

But, Good Lord, basically ending the college career of someone who never saw a penny of the money that was allegedly provided by Adidas to get him to Kansas? That seems a little harsh.

Truth: I would 100% support the NCAA saying, “You can never play at Kansas, or any other Adidas school. But you can have full, immediate eligibility at any other D1 school.” This is an Adidas and Kansas problem, not a Silvio De Sousa problem.

But, as always, the NCAA, despite all its talk about protecting “student athletes,” finds a way to punish the kid more than anyone else. KU could eventually go on probation, vacate wins from last year, and lose scholarships. But KU will be fine in the long run. Jesus, Louisville was where this all started and they have one of the top three recruiting classes for next fall. Kansas will bounce back if they get hammered.

De Sousa, though? The NCAA is ruining his college career because a guardian he trusted, but had no relation to, got greedy and Adidas got sloppy.

KU and the NCAA

So things got weird Saturday. There was athletic director Jeff Long’s angry press conference just before the KU – Texas Tech game Saturday, where he accused the NCAA of bad faith negotiating, meddling with the relationship between KU’s administrators and coaches, and straight up lying, among other things.

I have no idea what the truth is and how to process this. Did the NCAA really go back on a promise and hammer KU for something they viewed as a “hypothetical”? Did KU totally fuck this up, through misunderstanding or incompetence, and are trying to cover that up? Is something else going on? I have zero idea.

At the core of this the NCAA insisting they would not consider De Sousa’s eligibility until KU declared Adidas rep TJ Gassnola as a booster of the program. Forget about the KU angle for a second. If the NCAA is going to begin considering employees of shoe companies as “boosters” of programs, that is a game changer for every program that has a shoe contract. I.E. every program in the country. That definition opens about a million cans of worms, and seems like a flurry of lawsuits waiting to happen.

Another angle: the University of Missouri got slapped with probation last Friday for the actions of, I believe, one academic advisor or tutor or something like that. Mizzou cooperated with the NCAA: they self-reported the issue, took actions to eliminate the issue, prevent it from happening again, etc. And they got hammered pretty good. KU cooperated with the NCAA in trying to get De Sousa eligible. They proactively took him off the court and kept him off, waited for the NCAA to give them guidance, and then worked the process to restore his eligibility. Their reward was losing De Sousa and potentially giving the NCAA a big, fat hole to drive their investigatory truck into the program.

Now think back a few years, to the biggest academic scandal in college sports history, which took place at North Carolina. UNC lawyered up, delayed and delayed and delayed some more, and generally did as little as they could to assist the NCAA. The NCAA eventually threw their hands up, said it was out of their jurisdiction, and UNC got away without losing a game, a scholarship, a recruiting visit. Well, their football and men’s basketball programs did; somehow their women’s basketball program was the only one to get punished.

So we’re back to the mid–1980s, where it’s clear that if you work with the NCAA to resolve eligibility, academic, or other potential violations, you’re going to get punished, but if you stonewall and drag things out long enough, nothing is going to happen.

Gosh, I wonder how schools will behave going forward?

Anyways, I was hopeful that KU would somehow manage to dodge any serious repercussions from the FBI trial. Based on what we know from Gassnola’s trial – he stated although De Sousa’s guardian asked for money, he never paid it; Billy Preston never played at KU; etc – I think KU can probably spend a fortune and manage to avoid any major penalties going forward. Last year’s Final Four will, officially, disappear at some point.[1]We’ll see if the Big 12 decides to take away last year’s regular and postseason titles, too.

But I admit I’m more worried than I was before. You never know what the FBI found out that did not get submitted into the trial, or was slatted to be shared in the other trials that have been avoided by guilty pleas. I’m hopeful that word I got from someone who has worked with the FBI in the past will be true. H said, “Fuck that, there is no way the FBI is sharing anything with the NCAA.”

The Team

Some week for the actual KU basketball team. Lose to Kentucky on Saturday. Lose to Texas on Tuesday. Lose De Sousa for two years on Friday. And about 15 minutes after the De Sousa news broke we learned that Marcus Garrett hurt his ankle in practice and is out indefinitely. Oh, and Texas Tech was coming to town the next day.

Perfect!

Naturally KU played their best game of the year and the result was never in doubt over the last 35 minutes.

Sports are weird, my friends.

Which sets up a huge game tonight at K-State. Nothing about this K-State excites me. But, you know what, this year that might be the perfect way to win the Big 12. Just steadily win out. Protect your home court, steal a few on the road, and watch everyone else beat each other up.

But there is a loooot of basketball to be played. I still think Iowa State is the best team in the conference. But they lost at home to K-State by one, which right now is the best, and biggest, win in the conference this season. I really don’t understand how Baylor is playing so well. You figure Texas Tech is going to be a factor. And if KU can even play at 75% of the level they played at last Saturday they will be in it until the end.

I’m sure several of my loyal readers have been anticipating this post. So, finally, here are some disjointed thoughts on college hoops, shoe companies, and the FBI.

It’s been a crazy ass few weeks for college basketball in general, and KU basketball in particular. The first of several trials that resulted from the FBI investigation into shoe companies and agents allegedly defrauding universities featured KU at the center.

When the trial began, I was hoping that nothing worse that what we already knew about KU’s ties to the case would come out. As the trial played out, my reaction went along a timeline that is something like this:

Crap, holy crap, shit, holy shit, HOLY FREAKING SHIT.

In short, it was not a good week for KU hoops.

But as the trial wrapped up, I think things improved for KU. At least from the NCAA perspective, which really is the only one that matters.

Let’s get this out of the way first. I don’t believe Bill Self when he says he was unaware that Adidas was paying kids to go to KU.

I also don’t believe Sean Miller. Or Roy Williams. Or Coach K. Or Rick Pitino. Or Tom Izzo. Or (fill in every other D1 coach here) when they make the same assertions.

Each of these coaches may have very different relationships with the “dirty” side of recruiting. But I don’t think anyone can operate at the highest level of the game, where they are recruiting the top players against the top programs each year, and not have an idea that players they sign may have received cash from the shoe company that sponsors their school.

I think there may be some coaches on that list, and across college hoops as a whole, who stick their heads in the sand and decide to ignore it. If it benefits them, great. They’re just not going to get involved directly.

I think most of the best programs out there have someone aside from the head coach whose job it is to coordinate efforts so that recruits get paid while the head man keeps his hands clean. And each one of those head coaches has a carefully prepared defensive strategy that is several levels deep so that there can always be an explanation away if the dots start connecting too close to them.

See Bill Self’s statement last week, which was absolutely perfect for heading off an NCAA inquiry. He pointed out that everyone knows that shoe companies have been spreading money around grassroots hoops for years. That he’s recruited Adidas kids who signed with non-Adidas programs. That he’s signed kids who never wore Adidas until they got to KU. That he, and his staff, have never directed Adidas to spread out cash on their behalf.

He said all the things he had to say to begin laying out his defense. How much of it is true, and to what extent, I have no idea.

It helps KU that former Adidas consultant T.J. Gassnola had already plead guilty to the charges facing him, and then testified that the money he paid to Billy Preston’s mom and offered to Silvio De Sousa’s guardian came without KU’s knowledge. As the beneficiary of a plea deal, he risks a lengthy prison sentence if he testifies falsely.

It helps KU that Gassnola testified that he helped Billy Preston’s mom hide the payments from KU, and coached her on how to guide Billy through not disclosing the money to KU.

As writer Dan Wetzel pointed out during the trial, the transcript of KU assistant Kurtis Townsend discussing what it would take to sign Zion Williamson could end up not hurting KU either. Why? Because Williamson signed with Duke. And, as Wetzel wrote, are we really supposed to believe that Zion’s dad was asking for cash, a home, and employment and then signed with Duke for nothing? Or that the NCAA would ever look into anything Duke did? Wetzel called Duke KU’s get out of jail free card.

I’m not naive enough to think kids that go to KU – or any of the other top basketball schools in the country – aren’t getting more than tuition, room and board, and their monthly stipend. I don’t know whether the $90K Billy Preston’s mom got is routine or an aberration.

The thing I continue to think is very strange, however, is that KU never let Preston play, and even worked with the NCAA for three months to get him eligible. Do they do that if they were helping the kid get paid? If they facilitated the payments, don’t they either play him and hope no one ever finds out or just cut him loose if they think the NCAA is going to connect payments directly to the KU staff? Why do they take Cliff Alexander off the court in February of his freshman year if they had helped his family get paid? Why do they work to get De Sousa eligible mid-season if they knew Adidas had helped him repay Under Armour for the cash they gave his guardian to sign with Maryland?

It makes no sense to me why they would work directly with the NCAA if they had a hand in those kids getting cash. I don’t think Bill Self is that brazen. And I believe that will be enough to keep KU out of NCAA trouble.

So what happens from here?

Assuming more does not come out, I think the most likely scenario is that De Sousa will be the sacrificial lamb and never play for KU again. The NCAA will say it was because he got money from UA, rendering him ineligible. They will buy Gassnola’s statement that he never actually paid De Sousa’s guardian. And then the NCAA will either believe Gassnola’s testimony that Self and KU were unaware of his payments to Preston’s mom, or they will just refuse to look into it, saying that the US government proved in court that KU was defrauded by Adidas and there is no need to investigate.

I say that because I’d bet Wetzel was right: I don’t think the NCAA wants a thing to do with digging into this, because once the digging starts everyone is going to get dirty. The NCAA would love it if the defendants in the next set of trials all plead guilty and there is no more public airing of wiretaps that show college coaches discussing payments for players. They don’t want to put more light on the deals like Josh Jackson and Marvin Bagley’s parents got, which are technically according to the rules, but remain deeply troublesome ethically. They have zero interest in penalizing likely every top program in the game, pissing off all those coaches and administrators and fans, placing question on past tournament results, and threatening future tournament ratings by putting a swath of elite schools on probation.

I think the NCAA wants to sit back and wait for the NBA to change the one-and-done rule and then claim that will clean up the game.

Which is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Does anyone honestly believe that if Williamson, Bagley, Jackson, etc. can go straight to the NBA that will change recruiting? Coaches still want to, and need to, win. Even if the top 20 recruits all go pro each each, coaches will still fight like mad to sign the next 20 who can help them win. Those kids may not get as much money as the lottery picks, but you can be sure someone is going to shoot some cash their way to make their college decisions easier.

My biggest wish out of all of this is that some big time coach goes rogue. I want Self, or Miller, or Pitino, or someone else deeply involved, to burn bridges and start telling tales. I want one of them to stand up in front of the media and say this:

There have been a lot of questions about our recruiting practices and our relationship with shoe companies. Here’s the deal: we’ve paid every recruit we’ve signed since I’ve been here. We did it because if we didn’t, we’d never sign those kids, and then we’d never win any games and my athletic director and I would have been fired a decade ago.
Yeah, we paid Player X $50K to come here. That’s because Kentucky was offering him $40K. We babysat Player Y for three years, got him to a good prep school where all he had to do was ball and travel and they would make sure he was eligible. We moved his mom so she could be close to him. We had a car and a $75K check ready for him the day he signed. Then fucking Nike showed up with a check for $100K and a condo for his dad and he signed with Duke.

Wouldn’t that be awesome! I mean, it would tear the sport apart, but it would be a majestic meltdown.

I suppose I’ll finally take my head out of the sand, hold my breath, and write about KU’s name coming up in the most recent FBI indictments related to shoe companies, college hoops, and recruiting.

Over spring break I was only mildly tuned in to news of any kind. At the end of the day, while the family was taking turns getting showered and ready for dinner, I would check Twitter and scroll back just an hour or so to make sure I didn’t miss anything big. It just so happened that the KU news broke right as I was doing my daily check, so I got sucked into the instant analysis. That was a fun half hour or so as I and others speculated on what KU players were involved and combed through the indictment to see how bad it really was for the program.

I’m a little relieved to say, based on what we know right now, it’s really not that bad. I recognize that can change as more information comes out. And it’s certainly not good. But KU has not reached Louisville’s level of filth.

Why am I confident in saying that? Two words: Billy Preston. It is generally assumed that Preston is one of the two players referenced in the KU portion of the indictment. KU kept Preston from playing a single minute in a regular game last season. They appealed his eligibility to the NCAA for nearly three months before he gave up and took a paycheck in Europe. If KU was directly responsible for, or even had knowledge of, Preston and his representatives getting money from Adidas, there is no way they would have worked with the NCAA to get him cleared. That would be both the dumbest and boldest move of all times. “Hey, we arranged for our shoe company to pass a bunch of money to this kid’s mom. But we want you to examine his family’s financial records, our recruitment of him, and then rule him eligible.”

To me – admittedly wearing crimson and blue glasses – that’s a pretty clear sign that KU had no direct involvement in Adidas passing money to players they have recruited.

Again, I’ll say that’s based on what we know now. And I’m not saying Bill Self didn’t sit down with Adidas folks years ago and they had some kind of agreement that any player we were recruiting would get a bag of cash from Adidas if they signed with KU, and that agreement has held without any recent discussions to keep Self and his staff in the clear.

But if that was the case, why would KU rule Preston ineligible to begin with? Why not either let him play and hope they don’t get caught? Or just cut him loose when they believed the payments would come out? I suppose they could have fought to keep him eligible in order to keep his family from talking to the NCAA and spilling the beans. In that case, though, the smarter move is not to hold him in limbo for three months but to release him so he can sign a pro contract somewhere and get paid.

Now Silvio De Sousa likely being the other player named is more concerning. Silvio, of course, did play after becoming eligible in January. He played a major role in the Big 12 tournament championship game win over West Virginia. And he made some huge plays late against Duke in the Midwest regional final. When it became obvious that he was player #2 a lot of KU folks were saying things like, “Well, no need to put that Final Four banner up, because the NCAA is going to make us take it down because of Silvio.”

Now Silvio’s guardian, who allegedly took money first from Under Armour and then Adidas, denies he got any money from anyone. Which, of course he does. They never admit to taking money.

I’m a little less worried about the NCAA stepping in here for two reasons: Corey Maggette and Cam Newton. Duke was the only school not penalized in any way in the Myron Piggie scandal because they convinced the NCAA that they were not aware that Maggette’s eligibility was in question. Their 1999 Final Four banner still hangs. Same for Auburn and Cam Newton. Auburn is still, officially, the 2011 BCS National Champion despite Newton’s father getting paid. As with Maggette, Auburn successfully argued that they were unaware of the payments and that Newton’s eligibility was in question. If it comes to it, that is going to be KU’s argument regarding De Sousa.

Now Silvio may not be eligible to play another game at KU, but I have about 75% confidence that the NCAA isn’t going to make KU vacate any wins from this past season.

Again, this is all based on what we know now and can change if/when more information comes out.

Honestly, I was surprised this wasn’t a bigger story when I got back home and was catching up on news. I think that’s because the facts, as the public is aware of them, favor KU. No coaching staff members were named in the indictment, nor were any arrested in its aftermath. While some bomb throwers have been busy taking the allegations and running with them, it seems like most reasonable, national observers who have examined the evidence agree with my view: KU players, or more specifically their parents and guardians, were involved but so far there is no evidence that the KU program was directly involved.

So that’s my stance, and I’m sticking to it. And hoping more, worse information doesn’t come out.

Besides, Marvin Bagley III’s dad got way more money from Nike than Silvio De Sousa’s guardian got from Adidas, and it was Silvio who cut down a net in Omaha not MBIII. I view that as a much wiser investment. Flags fly forever, fools!

I haven’t dived into the details of the report released yesterday by the commission led by Condolezza Rice on reforming college basketball. I have read some summaries and reactions. I think I have to agree with the KC Star’s Sam Mellinger who said the commission was a disappointing waste of time.

I’ll bullet point the major items here:
* Ending one-and-done. Ok, whatever. Kids should be able to go pro whenever they want.
* Allowing players to get advice from agents. Good. Would be better if they could accept money and stay in school.
* Holding coaches more accountable for cheating. Excellent.
* Guaranteeing scholarships for 3–4 years. Good.
* Penalizing schools who have players go pro early by locking those scholarships until that player’s eligibility would normally run out. Absolutely fucking terrible. Texas Tech recruits a Top 200 player who blows up and is now likely to be a top 15 pick in the draft in Zhaire Smith. They get punished for that by losing his scholarship for the next 2–3 years???
* Giving the NCAA more power over summer ball. The worst.
* Completely punting on every aspect related to player compensation. Cowardly.

In short, a bunch of well-meaning, but half-baked and toothless ideas that, if implemented as expected, will probably cause as much new harm to the college game as it does clean up the issues.

I love college hoops. It’s my favorite sport, the one I live and die with for five months every year. I wish it was like the 1980s again, when the best players – guys with NBA Hall of Fame talent – stayed in school for three or four years routinely. But those days are long gone. The NCAA needs to wake up and realize that, too, and help to create an environment that helps everyone, not just the organization’s revenue stream.

And now for the not-so-fun stuff surrounding college basketball.

That’s right, no more Big Mondays this year. That’s sad.

I’m kidding, of course. The real thing we need to discuss regarding college hoops is why in the hell the Big 10 is playing their tournament this week. Getting bumped by the lowly Big East and having to adjust your entire schedule by a week, then letting all your teams sit around for nearly two weeks before they play an NCAA tournament game? All so they could play their tournament at Madison Square Garden as a shout out to Rutgers for joining the conference. Seems like a smart move to me.

Last night Rutgers was playing in the opening round. There were not a lot of seats filled. Attendance wasn’t much better in D.C. last year. And I predict it won’t be great when the tournament lands in Philly. But, remember, college athletics are run for the benefit of the student athlete. There is no other explanation why the Big 10 would play its tournament on the east coast. Right?

Ok, on to the real news…

Last Friday sure was exciting. I was on my way home from dropping the girls at school when I got a text from a friend saying Yahoo released names of players that allegedly received money from Andy Miller’s agency, and that Josh Jackson’s mom was on the list. I’m pretty sure I was reading the Yahoo article before my car had come to a complete stop in the garage. Elijah Johnson’s name was on the list, too. That was less than good.

Then later in the day word dropped that Arizona coach Sean Miller was allegedly on an FBI wiretap discussing a $100,000 payment to secure the commitment of DeAndre Ayton last year. That was like napalm getting dropped on sports radio and blogs.

There’s a lot going on here. I’m going to focus on the KU stuff, because the larger case has calmed down a bit and some cooler heads have pointed out we should reserve judgement until the information released Friday has more context, find out who is responsible for leaking the documents, and see if there’s more to come.

So, yeah, not good that two former KU players names were on the original list. After some deeper reading, though, I’m less concerned.

Lots of folks have pointed out that one can make a reasonable assumption that Elijah Johnson took his $15,000 well after he had finished playing at KU. The date on the spreadsheet Yahoo released was three years after Elijah left KU, and there was a notation that referred to a European pro team next to his name. This doesn’t prove that Elijah hadn’t taken the money while at KU and it was still owed, but it does make me inclined to ignore his name. If – big if – IF Elijah took that money after leaving KU there’s no issue for KU. I also feel comfortable taking this view because the Yahoo report didn’t play up Elijah’s name, despite him getting one of the bigger payouts from Miller’s agency and him being a KU alum. Seems like if you have a former Kansas guy getting fifteen grand you put it at the top of the story. But the Yahoo story focused on other programs in its opening paragraphs.

Josh Jackson, or rather his mother Apples Jones, appearing on the list is very concerning. The report claims that Apples may have received just under $3000 from Miller’s assistant, Christian Dawkins. A Dawkins email also indicated that Apples was receiving $10,000 per month from Under Armour to fund the AAU program she runs, and also suggested that Adidas might be paying her. That shoe money could be an issue, despite Apples’ being in charge of an AAU team. Josh signed with Under Armour after leaving KU, so while that would not implicate KU in him getting paid, it could put into question his eligibility if you can draw a straight line from UA sponsoring his mom’s program to him signing with them. Not sure the NCAA is smart or willing enough to do that. Adidas is KU’s supplier. If they were giving Apples money, too, did that have anything to do with Josh playing at KU?

Of course Jones denies ever getting any money from Dawkins. Her denial was rather pointed and carried specifics. She doesn’t play. But doesn’t mean her denial should be taken any more seriously than the others that popped up over the weekend until we get more information about these alleged payments.

At a minimum it looks bad. Is it actually bad? Based on what we know now we have no way of determining what actually happened, and what links there are between KU and the money Josh’s mom received. Friday’s report showed no coordination between the Miller agency and college programs. It appears to be more a case of an agent trying to influence kids to hire him for representation after school that coaches trying to find backdoor ways to get their recruits money. Thus, this mostly seems like more of an eligibility question for individual players than a broader scandal that implicates dozens of programs.

Here’s how I’ll breakdown my level of worry for KU.

I am worried because:

• Josh Jackson’s mom is on the list. She allegedly received money before he committed to KU, and may have been getting paid by two shoe companies.
• KU is always in the mix for some of the best recruits in the country. Some of those battles stretch out a long time, which makes you wonder did the kids who picked KU work a better deal from KU, or someone representing KU, than from another school?
• Adidas. Were they as dirty with KU as they were with Louisville?
• Andy Miller is one agent. There are dozens of other agents out there throwing money at kids. How many KU players might appear on a spreadsheet if the FBI raided some of their offices?

I am not worried because:

• Elijah Johnson was the only former KU player that Andy Miller has represented. And he, hopefully, got his money after leaving college.
• KU has finished second for a ton of good recruits over the years. Several of them went to Arizona. Just saying…
• Bill Self isn’t Rick Pitino. His Adidas money goes through the university first. Doesn’t mean he’s clean. But, holy hell, that Pitino contract was dirty AF, as the kids would say. How it survived this long without blowing up is kind of incredible.[1]
• Billy Preston and Cliff Alexander. KU never let one top 20 player play a regulation minute and yanked a top five player off the court mid-year and turned both over to the NCAA for a ruling when questions arose about their eligibility.
• Silvio De Sousa and Cheick Diallo. KU has worked with the NCAA to get each of these players eligible.a
• Combine those four players and KU has spent a lot of time talking to the NCAA in recent years. In the case of each of those players, KU had to be transparent about their recruiting process, relationships between the player and outside agents, etc. Nothing has come up from any of those cases that caused the NCAA to take a deeper look at KU’s program. Again, doesn’t mean KU is clean. But it gives me hope they’re cleaner than others.

A final reason I’m not too worried is that I think the NCAA is going to work hard to make this go away. Or, more likely, not do any work to punish most of the schools implicated Friday. I think Arizona, or one of the other schools named in the initial FBI report in September, will end up taking the fall for everyone else. I firmly believe the NCAA chose not to punish North Carolina for decades of academic fraud not because of some fancy lawyering UNC did, but because they knew pretty much every big time athletic program is engaging in some level of academic fraud. They did not want to have to look into every program and start shutting down the folks who keep the money rolling into Indianapolis.

Same for this case. So the NCAA will continue to issue statements that come off as shocked and appalled that such activity may be going on, and express a commitment to amateurism and the student athlete. But they won’t shut anyone down unless the FBI shares evidence that a program paid a couple million dollars to assemble a roster that got them to a Final Four.

They know if they dive into this new mess, it will require them to take a long look at every program. And I believe that pretty much every player that has come through a major summer program, gone to a prep school, or simply been highly recruited by Power Five conference schools can have their eligibility called into question if the NCAA, or anyone else, dug deep into their pasts. That doesn’t mean every kid, or even every program, is dirty. It means that youth basketball, though, is dirty, and most kids that come through those programs will have received something that violates something in the NCAA’s massive list of things “student athletes” are not supposed to do. Or someone attached to them – a parent, sibling, coach, advisor, or mentor – took something along the way.

I’m not surprised or disappointed any of this has come out. In fact, I’m excited.

This is shining a brighter light on the hypocrisy of college sports. This might finally lead to change. Kids are eventually going to get paid, above the table and legally. The draft rules will be changed. The power of the NCAA will be reigned in. Hell, all the parties involved might even take a crack at summer basketball, which is a true cesspool that preys on young kids who have no idea that taking some money then can ruin their chance to ever play college ball. And, hopefully, the power of the shoe companies will be lessened in the process.