The FBI NCAA Basketball saga or Corruption Case is starting to make headlines again as more information and possible further schools may be affected.
NBA Lottery picks, distinguished Hall of Fame coaches, and athletics departments have been warned by Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports that information under protective order could alter the sport of college basketball. Incriminating evidence which should come out at some point. “Athletic Directors should be scared, presidents should be losing sleep,” Thamel reported after hearing from “multiple sources.”
Thamel reported that 330 days worth of 4,000 intercepted calls and thousands of documents had been collected to be investigated as the discovery phase is coming to a close. He quoted a source where he got information and the warning from:
"“This goes a lot deeper in college basketball than four corrupt assistant coaches,” said a source who has been briefed on the details of the case. “When this all comes out, Hall of Fame coaches should be scared, lottery picks won’t be eligible to play and almost half of the 16 teams the NCAA showed on its initial NCAA tournament show this weekend should worry about their appearance being vacated.”"
Well, well, well.
Arizona Wildcats Basketball
We have been saying all along. It’s not just a small little issue that affects a few schools. It is a mess of huge issues that probably affect a lot of schools. It was just a matter of time. But we are not sure that what Thamel is suggesting is what will or should happen. If the problem is so deep and affects all the schools, then the NCAA may just make new rules and ways of enforcing them. All the money involved in NCAAB, all the money that can be lost, all the schools that depend on that money to educate students, all the students that cannot afford to pay more for school.
You could go on and on and on. The Ramifications of NCAA violations taking the top 20-50 schools out of the NCAA tournament or taking away their titles, or anything huge destroys the entire institution. Maybe, just maybe, someone in the NCAA should take the responsibility for looking the other way and not have instituted a way to make sure that back door payments were being made at all. But this isn’t a recent thing. It was proven that John Wooden’s UCLA teams were even tampered with by booster Sam Gilbert and was punished according to Chris Dufresne of the LA Times.
Mark Emmert, at the NCAA Convention in January, on the federal corruption allegations: "We know it's not widespread like people assumed it was.” Since he knows, perhaps he’d be kind enough to step forward and explain all of this, then. https://t.co/r2rzGNKsNN
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) February 16, 2018
So far we have heard that four schools and ten men have been indicted by the FBI in their college corruption case. One of those men is former coach Emmanuel Richardson, and one of those school programs is Arizona Basketball. Because of the alleged $20,000 he supposedly received (not from the Adidas rep but the Agent/Finance guys), Arizona recruits have run to other schools, mostly Duke and now with Jahvon Quinerly, Villanova who feels Quinerly will play.
It’s getting more and more intriguing. On Thursday charges against Adidas reps were attempted to be dismissed. Just last week, charges against an ex-AAU team program director Brad Augustine accused of funneling money to recruits families for signing with Adidas-sponsored colleges purposes were dismissed.
Must Read: More on Arizona Basketball from ZZ..
Are things falling apart for the FBI corruption case? A compromised agent, a dropped charge for an AAU Director, no record of the agent accused of coming to Arizona practices, so maybe? Will the NCAA just make new rules and fire people internally because all the coaches and programs involved will fold the entire NCAA Basketball tournament and organization? Or will, as Thamel and his source predict, the NCAA fall apart and only schools no one has heard of being in the NCAA tournament? We think its the former…but we will see…stay tuned!