NCAA Corruption: D-Day for Div 1 college hoops

PA-PLAYA

According to various reports this morning, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich will be fired today, due to the ongoing FBI investigation regarding fraud and corruption involving tens of thousands of dollars being paid to assistant coaches/head coaches to steer future NBA players to sports agents, financial advisors and sports apparel companies.

"Louisville wasn’t named explicitly or charged in the FBI’s sweeping investigation on wide-spread corruption within college basketball, but it’s easy to identify the Cardinals as “University-6” in the indictment from the Department of Justice. The program allegedly worked with Adidas to send $100,000 to an unnamed recruit for his commitment to the program. That recruit appears to be McDonald’s All-American shooting guard Brian Bowen."

"The report also details Louisville was working on securing a payment for a future recruit. An unnamed Louisville coach is recorded saying “we gotta be very low key” while noting the program was already in trouble with the NCAA."

https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2017/9/27/16370060/rick-pitino-fired-louisville-basketball-college-fbi-scandal

This will be a very broad process, that will most likely involve numerous assistant/head coaches as the investigation continues.

Cooperation will likely lead to lesser harsh prison sentences, which will undoubtedly indict other head/assistant coaches based on the wire taps and evidence levied against them.

It seems at this point that no big-name program in Division 1 college hoops athletics will be spared, if evidence exists that they too were involved in the matter.

I might also add that this also indicts the NCAA as being incapable of maintaining regulations within their own jurisdiction. And, perhaps, warrant an investigation of the NCAA itself to make sure nothing untoward is going on within their own ranks.

What a mess....

DC300

This is what the FBI worries about.. hmmm

PA-PLAYA

DC300

Although I completely understand your premise.... to be fair, I think the FBI is big enough, broad enough, to handle more than one issue at a time. If the NCAA itself seems incompetent to enforce/regulate their own brand of rules, then it just seems logical that the Feds step in and clean up college athletics.

And I find it sad that it has come to this, but this all falls on the NCAA (imo) with their incompetencies. We have a lot of overpaid NCAA authoritarians who (most likely) are also being paid to overlook these violations.

I think the corruption process goes far beyond players, coaches, assistant coaches and others. I think this also involves people entrusted to oversee a fair and unbiased process within their own institution.

And hopefully this is likewise revealed in the federal investigation.

Rickochet

DC300 This is what the FBI worries about.. hmmm

Hilliary emails, Comey, Lynch et al, thank goodness the FBI has their priorities in order. I guess the NCAA is a bigger threat to national security than we knew.

YafflDaffl

DC300
FBI = Forever Bothering Italians

DC300

PA-PLAYA I guess to me this is more about skating the rules of the NCAA which has been abusing the power to get athletes to play for free while they raked in millions. Granted there is some bribery going on, but again if it were "legal" for the companies to sponsor players in a free market scenario, would this even happen? Break up the NCAA monopoly and the problem goes away. Just my .02

ode

I heard about this on Tiki and Tierney (sp?) while on road yesterday.....I figured Pitino would be gone, there is only so much "didn't know this was going on" excuses you can make. For now I'll take a wait and see attitude, but.its hard to believe this isn't widespread.

We touch on this type of debate all the time re should players get paid, and there are arguments on both sides. I've always been on the side of no, as it will open the doors 10 fold to more corruption, given the amount of money in the game (this was about buckets, but football revenue dwarfs buckets).....and the impact.it would have on other college athletics would be devastating. IMO it would be the end of big.time.college athletics, at least as we know it, but I have been known to be wrong😌

I don't know what the answer is, but if.the fbi is going to be involved I hope they take it seriously and prosecute if.thats where the info leads. Not sure what can be done about these shoe company leaches, but hopefully.something.

PA-PLAYA

I think the fact that a shoe and apparel corporation is involved (which could logically lead one to conclude that there are others... like Nike?) is what prompted the feds to get involved. To me, it reveals a level of complicity that goes beyond a handful of assistant coaches and one big-name head coach being offered up as collateral damage.

Nevertheless, the NCAA rules committee (imo) should be gutted and replaced. They've pretty much sat on their hands over the past two decades and refused to deal with the countless recruiting violations/academic violations in lieu of protecting big-name head coaches in Div 1 athletics.

Rick Pitino has exhausted his get-out-of-jail free cards within the NCAA in recent years, and is now looking at a federal indictment which could involve a considerable prison sentence.

But at the same time - he's just one of several who've committed similar violations, and I'm looking forward to seeing how far the shoe drops and who else gets implicated.

professor

PA-PLAYA

PA-PLAYA I'm looking forward to seeing how far the shoe drops and who else gets implicated.

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/college/2017/09/27/Louis-Marty-Blazer-college-basketball-scandal-2017-ncca-fbi-pittsburgh/stories/201709270146

sdandrea1

What used to be a game, is now a business, including corruption. Sad.......but nothing new.

azgreg

sdandrea1 What used to be a game, is now a business, including corruption. Sad.......but nothing new.

This has been going on for decades at schools across the country.

ZWExton

Lately it seems like all of televised sports is on fire. I barely care to see the NFL scores on Monday morning (not really rated to the protesting, just tired of watching wildly overpaid clowns run into each other for the benefit of advertisers.) NBA is basically a handful of competitive teams running over JV squads until the playoffs (and then still, for most of it.) College football has been putting out interesting games on Saturday night at least. Ready to cut the cord and not miss sports!

The amount of resources being funneled into activities that do little to better lives and communities is disturbing. It's wild that the FBI is involved, but it's wild that this stuff happens to begin with. We live in a world where people get paid millions to wear shoes with a certain logo on them.

Weird, wild stuff.

LBlack14

Please tell me Kentucky is on the list!!

ode

LBlack14 that MF wrote the book....problem is he also wrote the book on how not to get caught!

ptjn1201

I'm sure there's some tax evasion going on, but in all honesty, paying kids and their handlers isn't illegal.

mikeintopeka

ptjn1201 - IF, and that is a big IF, all the FBI has on the kids and handlers is tax evasion - that often leads to prison time. Bribery is also a punishable offense. I'm wondering if the Louisville player starts singing that the Cardinals were the highest bidder for his services and squeals on the institutions that made other offers.

Louisville had already dodged some bullets surrounding 'hooker gate' before this little revelation came out with the arrests.

sdandrea1

azgreg
Like I said, nothing new. 🙁

I'm just old enough to remember when the game was a priority over the $.

Weirfan

azgreg

The proverbial ' tip if the iceberg'

LBlack14

ode see UMass & Memphis St

mikeintopeka

Rickochet - The FBI investigates potential Federal offenses. There isn't a week goes by that I don't read about arrests made as a result of an FBI assist or investigation in the Kansas City area or state of Kansas. Quick - name one you've heard or read about.

I predict by the time this investigation is finished, it will shake the core of college athletics and help to get rid of the stench and corruption. This investigation has been going on for 3+ years.

azgreg

Rickochet
For the FBI, this isn't a basketball or recruiting issue, this is a trafficking, money laundering, bribery across state lines issue for the benefit of the investment advisers, agents, and coaches involved.

professor

Rickochet I believe your skepticism was already addressed; that an organization as large as the FBI can have more than one or two items on the "to do" list. LOL