New allegations again darken the game
Among others, report implicates Arizona coach, freshman Ayton.
The first blow to college basketball came in September, when a federal investigation revealed hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks being funneled to influence recruits. The games went on under the dark cloud hanging over the sport, the season playing out while everyone wondered when the other sneaker would drop.
It did on Friday, when a Yahoo Sports report revealed documents from the federal inquiry showing more than two dozen players and their relatives received a wide range of impermissible benefits, from meals to five-figure payments. This second black eye comes 16 days before the field of 68 is selected for the sport’s marquee event, the NCAA Tournament.
“These allegations, if true, point to systematic failures that must be fixed and fixed now if we want college sports in America,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said. “People who engage in this kind of behavior have no place in college sports.”
After the Yahoo Sports report, ESPN, citing unnamed sources, reported that FBI wiretaps intercepted telephone conversations between Arizona coach Sean Miller and would-be agent Christian Dawkins in which Miller discussed a $100,000 payment to ensure Deandre Ayton signed with the Wildcats. Ayton, a 7-foot-1 freshman from the Bahamas, paces Pac-12-leading Arizona with 53 blocked shots and aveages
of 19.6 points and 10.9 rebounds. He is expected to be one of the top picks in the NBA draft.
Arizona’s Emanuel “Book” Richardson was among four major-college assistant coaches fired after they were arrested and charged in the bribery and corruption case. Richardson and Miller had a longtime association, having worked together for 10 seasons at Arizona and, previously, Xavier.
Now that these latest blows have been struck, two questions arise: What can the NCAA do about it? Do fans even care?
In September, the Justice Department arrested 10 people, including assistant coaches from Arizona, USC, Auburn and Oklahoma State. The federal investigation alleged bribes and kickbacks were used to influence star players’ choice of schools, shoe sponsors, agents, tailors. Payments of up to $150,000, supplied by Adidas, were promised to at least three top high school recruits to attend two schools sponsored by the shoe company, according to federal prosecutors.
The documents obtained by Yahoo include bank records and expense reports from former NBA agent Andy Miller and his agency, ASM Sports. Duke, North Carolina, Texas, Kentucky and Michigan State are among the schools involved.
The documents, obtained in the discovery phase of the investigation, also link current players including Duke’s Wendell Carter and Alabama’s Collin Sexton to potential benefits that would be violations of NCAA rules.
The NCAA was obviously outraged, but the documents have not been made public and the organization can’t take action against schools or players based upon a report by a news agency. No. 2 Michigan State cleared star forward Miles Bridges Saturday. The Spartans close their regular season today at Wisconsin and can win the Big Ten title outright with a victory.
Interim athletic director Bill Beekman says the school’s compliance office conducted a review after learning of the Yahoo Sports article, which mentioned Bridges, Friday and giving the findings to the NCAA.
Yahoo published expense reports listing a $400 cash advance to Bridges’ mother as well as a $70 lunch with the player’s parents.
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo had said there’s no reason to believe anyone with the Spartans’ basketball team did anything wrong.
Should the information be made public before or during the NCAA Tournament, the NCAA would be faced with potentially having to declare some of the nation’s top players ineligible and impose sanctions on many of the game’s most recognizable programs. The NCAA Tournament has generated $19.6 billion in TV money over the past 22 years and a tarnished product could hurt the bottom line.
Long term, it could force the NCAA to take a much harder look at its amateurism rules. The organization has had many discussions about this, but the magnitude of the latest allegations could spin the conversation forward much quicker.San Diego State provisionally suspended senior forward Malik Pope, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, while its compliance department investigates whether he received a $1,400 loan from an agent. Texas is withholding junior guard Eric Davis Jr. from competition until further notice after he allegedly received, according to the documents, a $1,500 loan from ASM Sports associate Christian Dawkins. On Saturday, Kentucky announced its internal review found no eligibility issues or rules violations with current players such as freshman forward Kevin Knox, who was mentioned in the report.
Fans may not care. Backroom payments have been college basketball’s dirty little secret for years and many fans assume most topname players are being paid to play.
The calendar also has turned to the part of the year when even casual fans start paying attention to college basketball. The excitement usually ramps up in February, after the football season, but it may be a delayed buzz this year because of the Olympics.