NCAA basketball is a ‘disgusting’ load of dirt
Remember the disappointment when Geraldo Rivera unearthed the late gangster Al Capone’s supposedly secret vault and found, um, dirt?
Once the details were parsed, didn’t a lot of you feel at least a little bit the same way about
Friday’s Yahoo! report concerning the theoretically secret underbelly of college basketball?
If the biggest worries for Alabama, Duke, Kentucky and the like going forward are that a few of their hotshot freshmen enjoyed a free lunch or dinner off an unscrupulous agent — and that paying back that $100 or so is their big penalty — isn’t this all just a tad overblown at the moment?
Don’t get me wrong. Saturday’s excellent bit of reporting by ESPN’s Mark Schlabach concerning Arizona coach Sean Miller being heard on an FBI wiretap to have offered $100,000 to agent Christian Dawkins to ensure the Cactus Cats could sign big man Deandre Ayton is both huge and disturbing news.
But at the risk of delivering a backhanded compliment to Miller, if he was able to secure Ayton for $100,000 — and at the moment the Ayton family vehemently denies that such money ever exchanged hands — the Arizona coach at least risked his future on a much better prospect than the far less certain talent that brought down Louisville coach Rick Pitino for the same coin: Brian Bowen.
As for Dawkins’ reported business luncheons with current freshmen Collin Sexton (Alabama), Wendell Carter (Duke) and Kevin Knox (Kentucky), those three players combined to total 52 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists in their Saturday games only.
So if these sports agents did in fact buy lunches or dinners for any of these players, let’s hope they ate steak at Ruth’s Chris or enjoyed afternoon tea at the Ritz, because anything less might label that agent incompetent.
Then there’s Ayton, who was so undone by the ESPN story that he went out and scored 28 points and hauled down 18 rebounds in an overtime loss at Oregon.
Still, it’s all pretty embarrassing and troubling and inexcusable. Or as Georgia’s Mark Fox — quite possibly the cleanest Power Five conference coach out there — declared Saturday: “It’s just disgusting, and we’re really hurting the game, and the game has been so good to everybody.”
He soon added: “We’ve had some situations where we didn’t get players because of that reason (cheating), and other teams have, too. I still believe you can do this job the right way, and that’s how we’re going to do it.”
It’s a noble philosophy. And a correct one. But Fox is currently 77-77 in SEC play over nine seasons, and such mediocrity surely would have cost him his job long ago at any school that demanded more from its men’s hoops program. Right or wrong, every school decides for itself just how dirty it’s willing to get to succeed. And while there’s always a solution or remedy, it’s also about how much pain you’re willing to endure to clean house and start fresh.
Then again, Miller might find a silver lining to being in the FBI’s crosshairs. Unlike the NCAA’s kangaroo court, where college athletics’ governing body is judge, jury and executioner — as well as its own appeals court — those tagged by the FBI will have their day in a court of law, ultimately judged by a jury of their peers.
An investigation is not an indictment, and an indictment is not a conviction. The accused in these cases all know that.
For instance, let’s say Miller discussed paying someone connected to Ayton but never followed through with the money. If you tell someone you’re going to rob a bank but never do it, no one arrests you for intent. Just because Miller considered it doesn’t mean he carried it out.
Or to quote the fictitious sports agent Jerry Maguire: “Show me the money.”
If they can’t find the loot, these cases should be moot.
That doesn’t mean profound change isn’t needed. And if there’s this much damage over one super agent (Andy Miller), imagine the fallout if the FBI goes all out to uncover the dark, dirty secrets of every agent who’s ever attempted to represent a would-be NBA player. It really could place enough current Division I powers on probation to make, as one expert joked a week or so, “UT-Chattanooga a No. 2 seed (in the NCAA tournament).”
But is there a fix? As has been written once before in this space — and in honor of the ridiculous free pass the NCAA granted North Carolina over 16 years of academic fraud — hand every Division I program one Get Out of Jail Free card.
It won’t protect coaches. Their fate is determined by their employers. So if Miller actually paid someone/ anyone $100,000 for Ayton, he’s out, just as Pitino was at Louisville. Nor can it be used to erase two charges from different times.
For instance, U of L might be able to get back the 2013 title it lost over Hooker/Stripper-gate, but it must pay the piper for Bowen, if proven true. Likewise, if Nerlens Noel received money from agent Miller or an underling before he was injured at Kentucky, that Get Out of Jail card will protect UK on that charge but not Friday’s charge that 201617 Wildcats star Bam Adebayo received more than $35,000. Big Blue could erase one but not both.
Assuming a single pass clears most programs, the NCAA could announce that everyone but those multiple rules breakers starts with a free slate in all sports come the fall of 1918, but that every violation after that will be met with swift and painful penalties.
Said Fox last weekend:, “I would like to see institutions take the lead and show true leadership and stand up for something. But I don’t have a lot of confidence we’re going to see that.”
Sadly, he’s probably right. But to change nothing will be to continue to see the sport covered in far more dirt than Rivera discovered inside Capone’s vault.