College Basketball Scandal

[ELA]

I believe every school that's been implicated is giving the NCAA a middle finger and essentially saying: "This is so vast and widespread you have no prayer of punishing us individually at this point, so might as well go 'F' yourselves and have fun trying to come get us later."
What's the NCAA going to do at this point, shut the whole season down?

Well, I know MSU (and I assume the rest) declared their kid ineligible, then submitted the review to the NCAA to reinstate them, which the NCAA did.  That's what the NCAA spokesman said the process was.
I think the ones that weren't so confident (like San Diego State with Pope) didn't take that route.  I think Arizona figured either it wasn't true, or they were going down anyway, because their accused violation IS the type the NCAA would punish after the fact, unlike benefits from an agent, so you might as well play Ayton and go from there.  Not playing him wasn't going to prevent vacating wins like not playing the other guys would have.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Yes, I agree as to the first.

Not sure what you mean by the second though.  I'm not sure it's clear he entered into any agreement with him.  All of these kids have handlers now.  Dawkins was his former AAU coach IIRC, and had been some sort of parental type figure in his life.  I would think you would need evidence that Bowen knew he was shopping him like that.  I don't see any evidence of that.  In fact, I would say at least the $100,000 Louisville paid for him would have been a tangible benefit to Bowen, had he seen it, and IIRC the FBI cleared Bowen of any wrongdoing there, and said it was a payment to his father.  This one sounds more like a small time runner trying to work his way up the chain by trying to use the high school connection he had to land an NBA player he probably couldn't even get a meeting with.  And was using him to his own personal benefit.  Remember this is a guy who lied on expenses, defrauded one of his NBA clients out of $42,000, and pretended to be the NCAA in a call to a then-HS aged Kyle Kuzma's family trying to convince him he was ineligible so that Kuzma would transfer to Dawkins' AAU team.

Here's a pretty comprehensive bio from Yahoo

https://sports.yahoo.com/meet-christian-dawkins-sloppy-reckless-prodigy-college-hoops-brink-213959726.html

True. There's a lot of weird stuff with Dawkins. 
But look at it from the other direction. Dawkins is certainly making people think that he's got control over where Bowen goes. He either does or he doesn't. But if I'm MSU or IU, it's not my job to determine if he's actually got the control he says he does. If he *does* have the control he's representing himself to have, then Bowen must have given him carte blanche to determine where he goes even if he doesn't know Dawkins is going to resort to nefarious tactics. In either case, Dawkins has become an agent per the definition [seeking financial benefit in exchange for Bowen's commitment], it's just a question of whether Bowen has an oral agreement to go where Dawkins says. 
If I'm MSU or IU, that's enough to report it to the NCAA. Someone's shopping a player to me, and I don't have to know whether the player is in on the deal. That's something the NCAA can figure out in their investigation.
I would say that the FBI clearing Brian Bowen of wrongdoing is a different matter than the NCAA. The FBI didn't clear him of not violating NCAA guidelines; they cleared him [taking your word for it] of committing a federal crime. The NCAA can still say that giving his father $100,000 makes him ineligible because it violates their amateurism rules. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I do want to point out that it would *shock* me if most programs aggressively report things like this to the NCAA.

When the Louisville thing broke in September, Painter had some strong statements on it and how he hoped it would clean up the game. But as it relates to players getting paid, his statement was this:

"It's your profession. You learn to navigate in and around it," he said. "You have a decision to make and we've always just tried to understand who we could recruit and who we couldn’t recruit. That's the best way I can put it. If you think something might be happening, something improper, you try to go in the other direction. A lot of times it's hard — maybe there's not a lot of big guys or not a lot of point guards or things of that nature — but after a while you get to the point where you find the guys who want to be at Purdue and want to be at Purdue for the right reasons."

He didn't say "someone shops a recruit to you, you let the NCAA know". He said you try to go in the other direction. Don't touch those guys with a 10 foot pole. 

So to me I'm actually not really criticizing MSU or IU for not reporting this, even if it's technically a violation not to report it. I think that's probably the most common response. Especially in the case of MSU and Dawkins, if there was an emotional link there and maybe the asst coach didn't want to get Dawkins in trouble even if he personally thought Dawkins was playing with fire. I understand that mentality. 

But based on the letter of the law, I think there technically *is* a requirement that any knowledge an institution obtains should be reported to NCAA Eligibility office. 

[ELA]

I agree with you that there technically is.  I just highly doubt anyone ever does something like that.  Izzo was blasted for reporting a recruiting violation regarding Chris Webber and Minnesota when he was still an assistant.  Something like Minnesota providing him with special seating during his visit there, which was technically an NCAA violation.  Criticized for being petty, and ratting out a 17 year old kid for a recruiting violation.  I actually think the story goes that Jud told Tom to bury the pictures and never let them see the light of day, because he knew it would hurt Izzo more than Webber.  I'm guessing Jud knew you don't turn kids in for recruiting violations.  My guess is the only time you see that is when the violation was by another program, and you aren't so much getting the kid in trouble, as getting the rival program in trouble.

The kid took a ton of visits.  He burned through his 5 officials (and Indiana wasn't even on that short list, IIRC, I think it was like MSU, Texas, Creighton, NC State, and ?).  Then after that, out of nowhere he visits DePaul, then Oregon, then finally Louisville and commits on the spot.  I highly doubt any of those schools, if not others, weren't offered the MSU/IU package, or the Louisville package, and stayed silent.

It does seem like some sort of violation, but my guess is standard practice is to walk away, because all you are doing otherwise is punishing a 17 year old who has trusted the wrong people.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Well, there's a difference between reporting someone for some petty minor rulebreaking and reporting someone for shopping a recruit in either a quid-pro-quo to get someone to sign with your agency or $100K in unmarked non-sequential bills. 

Kinda like we as a society know that speeding and murder are both against the law, but we treat them VERY differently. 

Still, I get it. There's a natural disinclination to rat someone out.

[ELA]

Well, that's an odd comparison considering we just had to look up to see if there even was a rule against it.

I think the general point of not doing it is that you are only going to wind up punishing the kid.  You'll only see it when they are trying to go after another program.  I'm guessing that's why I can think of precisely zero instances of a school reporting a kid for a recruiting violation that didn't have to do with reporting a school

[ELA]

Another note, in MSUs investigation they did find Bridges parents had accepted a $40 meal from (presumably) a different agent.  So he repaid it to a charity of his choice.

[CatsbyAZ]

UESPN's first (and second) reported timeline of Sean Miller bargaining $100,000 for Deandre Ayton is falling apart. 

I've come to believe that at some point an Arizona player was paid to come to Arizona, but it's something that happens at about 5 dozen other programs too.

[ELA]

You mean taking the word of the lawyer of a guy charged with fraud, as your only source and running with it isn't journalism?

All the President's Men 2: Men in Bristol would be more of a short film...

Bradlee: Whatayagot?

Woodward: Not much.

Bradlee: A source?

Woodward: One guy said he was in the hotel and nobody else was.  He looked like he was just Richard Nixon wearing a silly hat though.

Bradlee: Print it

Roll credits

[CatsbyAZ]

Sean Miller, the University of Arizona President, and the State Board of Regeants challenging ESPN + Sean Miller introduced to standing ovation last night, along with Alonzo Trier reinstated - keep throwing it back at 'me Arizona.

[MaximumSam]

Should be interesting.  Sounds like Miller not really denying talking to the guy, but very vocal about the content of the conversation.  Will get leaked eventually, I imagine.

[FearlessF]

so, this is all much about nothing?

where can you buy a dinner for the family of a Spartan player for $40?

I can't get burgers for my two daughters and myself for $40 in Sewer City

[ELA]

FWIW, with the college basketball shoe company scandal trials beginning today, for determining potential biases in jury selection a list of school that may come up during trial was given to jurors, no Big Ten schools on the list.  So I guess that's nice.

Arizona, Louisville, NC State, Miami, LSU, Oregon, DePaul, Creighton, Texas, Oklahoma State, and USC were the schools on the list

[ELA]

FWIW, with the college basketball shoe company scandal trials beginning today, for determining potential biases in jury selection a list of school that may come up during trial was given to jurors, no Big Ten schools on the list.  So I guess that's nice.

Arizona, Louisville, NC State, Miami, LSU, Oregon, DePaul, Creighton, Texas, Oklahoma State, and USC were the schools on the list

Quote from Steve Haney, attorney for Christian Dawkins:
"Michigan State was one of the only schools that was not going to pay Brian Bowen to go there"
They've already said Oregon offered more than the $100,000 that Louisville offered to land him.  He was a good prospect, but not an elite one.  If there were multiple schools bidding in the six figures for Bowen, then how ugly is this whole process really?