~2017-18 Big Ten Basketball Thread~

[grillrat]

Purdue picked up 3*/4* Emmanuel Dowuona yesterday.  He's a center out of Miami, FL. and had interest / offers from Louisville, Tennessee, and Clemson.  Louis King (5*) and Eric Hunter (3*/4*) are supposed to be announcing within a few days.  King is a long shot (likely Oregon), but odds look good for Hunter.

[MichiFan87]

Ignas Brazdeikis just committed to Michigan. He had offers from Vanderbilt, Florida, Baylor, Cincinnati, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Illinois, among others. Scouts say he's probably not a future pro, but good enough to be a major contributor rather quickly, as a 3/4 guy, which will be important to replace Duncan Robinson.

Michigan is now officially full for 2018, but given that several players are still being actively recruited, it appears the coaches either expect Wagner to go pro after this year and/or one or two players from the end of the bench to transfer, which I suspect will happen, as well.

[MarqHusker]

WSJ reporting this morning that several arrests will be made today in a probe of alleged bribery and kickbacks at several 'top tier' basketball programs. 

Executives at at least one apparel company are expected to be among those arrested today.    They are looking at whether coaches at schools have been paid by third parties in exchange for pressuring players to associate with certain brands.

[MarqHusker]

Arrests made in Bribery probe



Here's more from Bloomberg.  Looks like a press conference set for noon today.   Chuck Person is the most notable named defendant at this time.    Former and current coaches from USC, USCe, oSu, and Arizona as well as a referee are named defendants in the three unsealed indictments.

[grillrat]

Eric Hunter commits to the Boilermakers.  Decent 3*/4* shooting guard with a lot of upside.

Also, HOLY CRAP!!!  Looking at the current (and yes, I know they will change, but for the moment.....) team rankings for 2018, 5 Big Ten teams in the top 10 (IU, MSU, MI, NW, OSU), 7 in the top 15 (MN, MA), and 9 in the top 25 (RU, PU).  Haven't seen that in a while and several Big Ten programs are still in the running for some of the uncommitted 5* guys.

Also, some potential big news coming out with fraud and corruption at several schools associated with Adidas concerning the paying of recruits to go to Adidas schools.  Arizona, Auburn, USC, and OkSU already having some assistant coaches arrested by the FBI.

This is something that could blow up pretty big.

[847badgerfan]

Auburn.. Bruce Pearl?

[ELA]

This corruption thing is a major development for the future of basketball recruiting and the dirty world of top level AAU hoops

[847badgerfan]

I wouldn't mind seeing the AAU go away. That would certainly help clean things up.

[MaximumSam]

Let me just say I'm just shocked that Louisville is implicated here.  Rick Pitino is clearly above all that.

[MaximumSam]

[847badgerfan]

Maybe this will finally spell the end for the scumbag? Man, he is so full of shit.. lucky my ass.

Jim Gatto, director of global sports marketing for basketball at Adidas, was among those arrested. He's accused of helping funnel approximately $100,000 to the family of an "All-American high school basketball player" to secure the prospect's commitment to a school Adidas sponsors. According to documents, the prospect committed in June. The only "All-American high school basketball player" who committed to a school Adidas sponsors in June is Brian Bowen. He's now enrolled at Louisville.

Louisville coach Rick Pitino was asked about Bowen's commitment in June.

"We got lucky on this one," Pitino said. "I had an AAU director call me and say, 'Would you be interested in a basketball player?' I said ... 'Yeah, I'd be really interested.' But [Bowen and his people] had to come in unofficially, pay for their hotels, pay for their meals. So we spent zero dollars recruiting a five-star athlete who I loved when I saw him play. In my 40-some-odd years of coaching, this is the luckiest I've been."

[grillrat]

I'm thinking this might finally be the nail in Pitino's coffin.  The school is already on probation.  They have wiretaps of two Louisville coaches admitting that the payments need to be "low key" to avoid being caught.
Without Strippergate, it's possible that Pitino could have thrown the assistants under the bus and claimed he knew nothing about it.  He can indeed still pursue that route, but this is now squarely into "Institutional Lack of Control" because Ricky can't keep his assistants from breaking the rules.


Interesting.  I mentioned above about the current 2018 recruiting rankings.  USC and Arizona are at the top of the list.

MSU / Izzo looking good for backing off from Bowen.  Unless he can somehow pull off the patented Cam Newton "I had no idea my parents were doing this behind my back", his college career is in extreme jeopardy.

[MarqHusker]

I'm of the view that this matter (or behavior) is not at all limited to those identified in the indictment.  I would expect this activity to occur at a much broader scale. 

[ELA]

I'm of the view that this matter (or behavior) is not at all limited to those identified in the indictment.  I would expect this activity to occur at a much broader scale.  

I don't think to the tune of $100,000 payments
Are there $500 handshakes all over the place?  I assume so