Turgeon confident about FBI probe
Coach says investigation will show no wrongdoing at UM; McNamara remembered
COLLEGE PARK – More than seven months after his program was first connected to the FBI’s ongoing investigation into college basketball’s corruption, Maryland men’s coach Mark Turgeon said Thursday that his feelings haven’t changed.
He feels confident that the FBI probe will show no wrongdoing on Maryland’s part.
“I’m the same way I was the first day — I feel great about our involvement,” Turgeon said to reporters after the Terps’ workout at Xfinity Center.
Maryland, which will embark on a three-game, 10-day summer tour to Italy on Saturday, received two subpoenas in recent months from the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York’s Southern District related to the FBI probe.
The first involves a former player allegedly receiving a little over $14,000 from agent Andy Miller. The player’s name is redacted, but it is believed to be Diamond Stone, who came to Maryland as one of the country’s top high school prospects in 2015 and stayed for only one season before being picked in the second round of the 2016 NBA draft.
Longtime Maryland assistant Bino Ranson was mentioned in the subpoena involving the former player, whose name was redacted. Since Ranson was the lead recruiter for Stone, it is believed that Stone is the player in question.
The subpoena requested a copy of Ranson’s contract and any “investigative file maintained by Maryland regarding allegations of possible or potential misconduct by Ranson.”
The second subpoena involves Kansas forward Silvio De Sousa, a player Turgeon and his staff had recruited and many believed was headed to Maryland. According to the subpoena, De Sousa’s guardian had asked a former Adidas executive named in the FBI investigation for money to repay another school and or shoe company after the player chose to play for the Jayhawks.
Turgeon, whose name was not mention in either subpoena, said he and his staff have been cooperative with the FBI.
“They’re asking for information, so we’re helping them with information on those cases,” Turgeon said.
Turgeon said the university’s internal review looking into allegations from the first subpoena had been completed.
“In my mind, that’s over,” Turgeon said. “I’m not concerned about it at all. I don’t lose sleep over it. I don’t think about it. We’re moving on and I am going to coach this team.” McNamara remembered by Turgeon: Before taking questions from reporters after his team’s workout Thursday in College Park, Maryland men’s basketball coach Mark Turgeon offered some thoughts on John McNamara, one of the team’s former beat reporters who was among five Capital Gazette employees killed June 28.
“Obviously we lost a good man, John McNamara,” Turgeon said of the 1983 Maryland graduate. “I really appreciated him because he loved Maryland. He loved Maryland basketball. He’s going to be missed. Sometimes you guys have to write bad things about me and I get it. But a lot of times you guys have been real supportive and he was very supportive.”
McNamara, 56, covered Maryland athletics as a student reporter for the school newspaper, The Diamondback, and for over two decades with the Capital. He wrote two books on Maryland athletics and was working on a book on local basketball at the time of his death.
Turgeon and Hall of Fame Maryland coach Gary Williams were among those who attended McNamara’s memorial, held at the campus chapel.
“The funeral was terrific [in the way McNamara’s life was celebrated] that day,” Turgeon said Thursday.