Arrests not a shock to college hoops followers

Top-level basketball recruits played in gyms across Las Vegas over the summer, their final shot to impress college coaches during a live-recruiting period.

Around the same time in July, an undercover FBI agent was in a Sin City hotel room where more than $12,000 changed hands, money earmarked for influencing a high school player’s choice of colleges.

The meeting was one of several recorded by federal investigators during a threeyear probe that led to the arrest of 10 people, including four assistant coaches at prominent schools. It also illuminated an aspect of college basketball the NCAA has failed to fully uncover for years: the shadow y world of recruiting.

“The NCAA’s never had the ability to enforce rules,” Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak said. “I was told this summer by a coach, ‘If you’re not cheating, you’re cheating yourself.’ Certain conferences, I think, are notorious for doing that, and if you’re trying to compete in those conferences and you don’t do it, you’re going to be subpar. It’s a big egg on a lot of our faces.”

On Sept. 26, federal prosecutors announced the arrests of 10 people , including assistant coaches from Arizona, Southern California, Oklahoma State and Auburn. An Adidas marketing executive also was arrested, alongwith a tailor known for making suits for NBA stars in a case that alleges bribes were exchanged to influence high-level recruits’ choice of schools, agents and financial advisers.

The federal probe also implicated Louisville in paying aplayer to attend the school, leading coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich to be placed on administrative leave. Louisville has since started the process of firing Pitino for cause.

The arrests and accusations, though blockbuster in nature, were not exactly shocking to followers of the sport.

The shady side of recruiting has always been college basketball’s dirty little secret, standard operat- ing procedure for numerous programs across the country about which little could be done.

The NCAA has had some success in uncovering the seamy underbelly of the sport.

In the 1990s, California coach Todd Bozeman was fired and the school was forced to vacate victories from two seasons after a pay-for-play scandal in which a recruit’s parents were given about $30,000. Kentucky was placed on probation for three years in 1989 after the NCAA found an assistant coach sent money to the father of a recruit to get his son to play in Lexington, among other violations.

Michigan was forced to forfeit 112 wins from five seasons, including a pair of Final Four appearances, after the NCAA found booster Ed Martin lent four players more than $600,000 as part of a gambling and laundering scheme. Coach Steve Fisher was fired in 1997 for violations involved in the scandal.

But for every NCAA takedown, countless others slip through the massive cracks in the system.

“When I did play, there was always rumors about guys getting this or that to be where they were, so this is nothing that is completely unexpected,” said Arizona State coach and former Duke standout Bobby Hurley. “It doesn’t appear to be a systemthat works right now, so I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of conversation about that.”

The conversation may start with the shoe companies at the grass-roots level of basketball.

It used to be that high school coacheswere the conduits to top recruits. Now the shoe companies run the show.

Adidas, Nike and Under Armour — a relatively new player in the hoops game — are on constant lookout for the next LeBron James or Steph Curry to make them millions. The courtship starts early. Today’s recruits often identify with a brand at a young age, in part because the shoe companies are so involved at the lower levels of the game, sponsoring tournaments and travel teams.