Texas A&M coach says ‘there’s a lot of slime in our game’
COLLEGE STATION — The recent disclosure by the federal government of an investigation into college basketball corruption surprised Texas A&M coach Billy Kennedy in that it involves the FBI. But he doesn’t consider surprising the revelation that college basketball is an often-seedy affair.
“It’s been going on since I’ve been in the business,” Kennedy said of underhanded and nefarious means of obtaining prospects. “When you can get blown out of the water on a recruit real quick.”
Kennedy on Tuesday discussed the Aggies opening their season with an exhibition game at Reed Arena against Tarleton State on Nov. 3. A&M is an Adidas school — meaning the apparel giant has a contract with the Aggies to supply shoes, uniforms and plenty else – but A&M has not been named as one of the schools being looked into.
The investigation keys on relationships between companies like Adidas, Nike and Under Armour and players and universities. Longtime coach Rick Pitino is one of the early casualties of the scandal, as Louisville has placed him on administrative leave and likely intends to fire him for cause after the investigation implicated Louisville for paying a player to attend the university.
“It’s disappointing, but it’s a billion-dollar business, college basketball,” Kennedy said of the overall scandal. “It factors into recruiting and into eighth- and ninth-graders today, which is totally different than it was years ago. There’s a lot of slime in our game.”
Kennedy said he doesn’t have all of the answers or even some of them, but he pointed to Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s recent comments on the matter as making a lot of sense.
“If somebody said, ‘Your kid is really good, I’m going to outfit his high school team in whatever, Adidas, Nike, Under Armour. Would you accept, and would it be legal? Yes,” Krzyzewski said during Duke’s annual media day earlier this month. “If they said, ‘I’m going to take you and 14 other kids and their families to Italy to play, would you accept? Yes. Illegal? No.’”
While such things are legal, Krzyzewski said, it leads to problems when transitioning from high school to college.
“We don’t have a good model; we don’t have a model that fits what’s happening in basketball, so college basketball is going to have problems, and before these kids ever come to us, we are not the only ones recruiting these youngsters,” Krzyzewski said. “There’s absolutely no progress (in determining a solution).”
A point by many of the coaches concerning this? There do not seem to be any straightforward answers.
“The NBA one-and-done deal that’s in place, that probably needs to go back to letting kids go pro right away,” Kennedy said. “Or then be in college (at least) two years. Those are things that might help some of it. … There are a lot of things that can be done in changing it.”