Arizona Basketball: FBI Investigation charge may not hold water and more

The NCAA FBI Investigation put a knife in the side of Arizona Basketball recruiting and turned the program on its ear, but is there any proof?

Arizona Basketball assistant coach Emanuel ‘Book’ Richardson was officially fired by the University on January 11, 2018, as reported by Arizona Daily Star’s Caitlin Schmidt. After initially being suspended nearly 15 weeks ago, Richardson had been on paid leave. He is now no longer being paid.

It seems the time has come for Arizona Athletics to feel safe enough to produce proof to the public that the FBI may not have anything on the program. As soon as the official firing of Coach Book Richardson was made public, documents were released by the University that seems to prove no agents freely attended or attended practices at all.

Arizona Wildcats Basketball

According to Bruce Pascoe, Tucson.com, the University of Arizona, “Says it has no written records of agents, NBA scouts at Wildcats’ basketball practices.”

Maybe the sports agent caught saying he basically could come and go from McKale at will, was just boasting?

As you may remember, a week after official Arizona Basketball practices began, the FBI came out with their report and indictments which included assistant coach Book Richardson. A huge dark cloud has since been looming over Tucson. But what was this all about?

Allegedly, sports agent Christian Dawkins was caught boasting that he had access to Arizona practices and more. Pascoe reported earlier that for head coach Sean Miller if these things were true it, “Could turn into failure-to-monitor violations if an agent’s presence around the program.”

Here is what Dawkins alluded too in his comments, that he went to the teams practices:

"In the complaints, sports agent Christian Dawkins said a current Arizona player has already been paid and is quoted saying he is “friends” with UA coaches and can attend practice “like I’m on the team.”"

Pascoe wrote a letter to the Coordinator of Public Records on October 4, 2017, Teri Bentson, and got an official response back. Bentson wrote the following in the schools’ response on January 24, 2018:

"Any log or record of attendees to Arizona men’s basketball practices during the 2016-17 season, including NBA scouts, sports agents, coaches or others not on the UA’s coaching or playing rosters.The University has no records responsive to your request."

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This may be why President Robert Robbins and Athletic Director Dave Heeke have carried on and backed Sean Miller to continue coaching. This information may have been shared with the two 2018 commits as well, so they feel more comfortable with their decision. No proof. There are other requests that have been made by ADS, but they have not yet received a response.

It seems the FBI based most of their indictments on what was said. Since the indictments were made public, Taeshon Cherry de-committed from USC after being identified as the USC recruit in the FBI papers and committed to ASU just this past week.

While former Arizona commit Jahvon Quinerly another player possibly implicated in the investigation, was recently named to the MacDonald’s All-American game, but has not committed to another school yet. Quinerly had to hire a lawyer.

Brian Bowen was cleared from the FBI investigation and was committed to Louisville where head coach Rick Pitino and their AD were fired.

In the last two weeks, two other storied NCAA basketball programs have come under the microscope. Kevin Ollie’s UCONN program is being investigated by the NCAA for, “Some, if not all, involves areas of recruiting”  according to Jeff Jacobs.

Michigan State’s Athletic Director Mark Hollis just resigned under pressure from the Dr. Nasser conviction this week. The MSU Program, including head coach Tom Izzo, was investigated by ESPN Outside the Lines (OSL) for covering up sexual assault and other related incidents as far back as 2009.

It remains to be seen if there is any proof Book was paid the alleged $20,000 by Dawkins, or if he allegedly paid a commit anything. It is also not been reported that the players named or their families were paid by Adidas at other schools in the FBI findings. So who knows how this will all shake out and when?

Washington State head coach Ernie Kent suggested that there are issues all over the NCAA.

As one Arizona recruit after another commits to Duke or other schools, this limbo the Wildcats have been put in by the FBI investigation, and indictments have affected future years of recruitment. Neither Brandon Williams or Shareef O’Neal have wavered from their verbal and thank goodness for that. However, there are multiple investigations going on by the NCAA, the Pac-12, the schools, and their families are aware of that. Is there an end date? Where is the fallout from the Nike FBI raid? We have to wait and see.

Here is a little bit about the FBI Investigation:

I predict nothing happens until after the NCAA Championship, there is just way too much money to be made. I also think that there is such a web of schools and tactics used in recruiting that it may take years for the investigations to uncover everything they need too from what I have seen on Twitter from former players.

In my opinion, it’s illogical to think that schools like Duke or Kentucky or any other program with a bunch of one-and-done’s can magically get recruits, you would think if there are any wrongdoings it is NCAA-wide. It’s possible that the NCAA just decides to be more diligent in the future and puts out new rules to follow. It would be hard to fire all the major coaches and retain the public interest in college basketball.

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As far as Arizona Basketball, maybe Miller will end up having a more experienced team next season. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Look at Purdue with all their experience. Yeah, that loss to Purdue is easier to explain with every big Boiler Maker win.