FBI may nab several NCAA coaches
Former Louisville coach Rick Pitino might not be the only big name relegated to the proverbial sideline as the FBI continues its investigation into college basketball recruiting. Reports this week indicated the scandal could mushroom, implicating more of the sport’s most prominent coaches.
Up to three dozen Division I programs could be facing NCAA violations, including some perennial March Madness stalwarts, according to a report from ESPN’s Mark Schlabach. A second report went even further: “The breadth of potential NCAA rules violations uncovered is wide enough to fundamentally and indelibly alter the sport of college basketball,” wrote Yahoo’s Pete Thamel.
“This goes a lot deeper in college basketball than four corrupt assistant coaches,” one of Thamel’s sources said. “When this all comes out, Hall of Fame coaches should be scared, lottery picks won’t be eligible to play and almost half of the 16 teams the NCAA showed on its initial NCAA tournament show this weekend should worry about their appearance being vacated.”
The possible violations would be revealed via “information included in wiretap conversations from the defendants and financial records, emails and cellphone records seized from NBA agent Andy Miller,” Schlabach reported, and would “involve illegal cash payments to prospects and their families, as well as players and their families receiving tens of thousands of dollars from agents while they were still playing in college.”
Thamel reported the FBI has recordings of 4,000 phone conversations related to its investigation.
The programs trying to “buy players,” according to one of Schlabach’s sources, were not mid-major programs trying to get to the top, but “teams that are already there.”
Louisville fired Pitino, a member of the basketball Hall of Fame who has won two NCAA titles, in September over his alleged knowledge of a scheme with an Adidas executive to steer top recruits to Louisville via six-figure payments to their families.