Seeing as how this all just get announced yesterday, I highly doubt it

bobinator said:

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Seeing as how this all just get announced yesterday, I highly doubt it

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Plus we need to maintain a sense of perspective about this. This effects only a small percentage of recruits - most likely the 5-star, one and done types. Even an agent flush with cash won't spend on a high school kid unless he's considered a legit NBA prospect. So even if we are clean, maybe that means we have no shot at the top 20 or so ranked players.

"AAU" in and of itself isn't a problem. AAU is actually really bad at branding apparently, because that's another false target like the NCAA.

This situation arose in basketball because pro basketball players are worth A LOT of money, a lot of kids who want to play pro basketball don't have any money, and it's relatively cheap for someone with a lot of money to fund them.

And you've set up a system where there is no free market. You can't just simply pay the best players for being the best players until they're 19-20 years old.

So you have a false market, with a lot of money in it, and that money is going to go somewhere. So it's going toward influencing the players. It's going to people around them, their coaches, their "handlers," or whoever who, in a lot of cases, don't have any money themselves. How can they refuse it?

But again, getting the best players together in the summer to play against each other isn't in and of itself a problem.

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100K AND free hookers.

But according to Pitino, he knows nothing about any of this.

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They COULD have hid it from him, thinking Pitino would take all the hookers for himself.

Never know.

bobinator said:

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"AAU" in and of itself isn't a problem. AAU is actually really bad at branding apparently, because that's another false target like the NCAA.

This situation arose in basketball because pro basketball players are worth A LOT of money, a lot of kids who want to play pro basketball don't have any money, and it's relatively cheap for someone with a lot of money to fund them.

And you've set up a system where there is no free market. You can't just simply pay the best players for being the best players until they're 19-20 years old.

So you have a false market, with a lot of money in it, and that money is going to go somewhere. So it's going toward influencing the players. It's going to people around them, their coaches, their "handlers," or whoever who, in a lot of cases, don't have any money themselves. How can they refuse it?

But again, getting the best players together in the summer to play against each other isn't in and of itself a problem.

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I stand corrected. I used AAU as shorthand for the culture that's grown up around it. You are correct sir.

Soooo....

https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/comments/72u1wi/is_texas_ams_2015_recruiting_class_suspicious/

bobinator said:

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Seeing as how this all just get announced yesterday, I highly doubt it

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The only connection to Aggie basketball that I have noted thus far in all this is:

a) Three of the schools who got hit the most thus far (Arizona, USC, & Auburn) are on our schedule next season, have lost an assistant coach...and maybe will have some players on their current roster declared ineligible (remains to be seen).

That USC assistant (Tony Bland) for example, supposedly gave some money to one of their incoming freshman as well as one of their current sophomores.

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Prosecutors also charged Bland with facilitating cash payments of $9,000 to families of two USC basketball players. That would violate NCAA rules. The two players, who weren't named, were identified in the complaint as "Player-8" and "Player-9," an incoming freshman and a rising sophomore.

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Not sure yet who Player-8 and Player-9 exactly are yet, but those certainly might be a couple less players the Trojans have available when the Ags play them in a couple of months. I'm assuming all these 'Player-#' guys mentioned in those indictments may have some explaining to do with the NCAA. Already that 5-star at Louisville has been suspended from their team today.

b) The USC assistant coach Tony Bland also appeared to be one of the primary reasons that Texas A&M lost out on high 4-star PF recruit Cherry several weeks ago. Texas A&M *seemed* to be in a good position with Cherry for at least awhile. Cherry specifically said after committing that Bland was the key coach in his recruitment. Whether or not Bland went outside the lines in the recruitment of Cherry to make sure he picked them, don't know. Just noting that of all the 2018 recruits we seemed to go hard after, Cherry is the only one with a really close connection to one of those 4 arrested assistants.

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This makes the NCAA look like a bunch of idiots.

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I agree with the sentiment, but the NCAA would come back and say, hey, we don't have subpoena power, we can only investigate through people willing to speak with us. And most of them don't want to talk.

I do, however, think that when the NCAA wants to get someone (like Johnny) they get real creative. So regardless of what they say, there IS some truth here.

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Chuck Person is accused of taking money from a representative in exchange for convincing Auburn or other players to sign with that rep. Its not about recruiting.

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Somehow I don't buy the idea that an assistant coach who is doing ANYTHING illegal in other areas isn't also cheating in recruiting. Possible, I guess, but highly unlikely. It may not be directly related to what he was arrested for, but wait for the evening news.

This goes back to who exactly should be responsible for, and has the power to, stop it?

High school coaches don't like summer because of how important it's become to recruiting. There's less importance put on a player playing well at his high school than there is in the summer.

Now why is that? Because the NCAA has open evaluation periods are in the summer. Is it more valuable for coaches to go to a high school game where at best they're going to see a couple of guys they're looking at playing one game against subpar competition, or is it more valuable to get as many good players on the court as possible and watch them there? That's not even mentioning that the high school season goes on at the same time as the college season.

So yeah, it's pretty obvious why high school coaches hate it, it's taken their power away. They're no longer as much a part of the process as before. AND a lot of them have their best players taken away to go to these basketball factory schools where the players play with (and against) more talented teams and get free room and board.

But how do you restrict that?

The players are getting a better deal, they're more likely to be seen and they can live and eat for free at some of these schools which helps their family.

The coaches get a better deal because they can see more players in less time and without travel costs.

As an institution, who is "travel basketball" hurting other than high school coaches?

The problem comes when they heavy-handedly try to restrict it. For example in the summer it's just an "evaluation period" and coaches can't have contact with players. So who are they going to have contact with? Their summer coaches, their parents, etc.

The answer, as counterintuitive as it is, might be in less restrictions, not more. If coaches could contact high school athletes all the time, it would take all of the middle men out of the equation. If schools could host their own camps where they could pay for players to come (like the elite camps of years back) I think they'd have more productive contact with the players themselves.

A lot of this situation was created by over-restricting what coaches could and couldn't do in my opinion.

Guitarsoup said:

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Can't ride off into the sunset can he?

Ol Jock 99 said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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Can't ride off into the sunset can he?

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$51,000,000 vs $0.00

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I think death penalties are not happening again...if state penn and Baylor managed to avoid them, I can't imagine a scenario where it happens...

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Once again -- the death penalty is the jargon for the REPEAT VIOLATORS rule. It is not a rule that deals with the severity of one occurrence. The school must, I believe, already be on NCAA probation.

Louisville is right in the crosshairs of this rule.

91AggieLawyer said:

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I think death penalties are not happening again...if state penn and Baylor managed to avoid them, I can't imagine a scenario where it happens...

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Once again -- the death penalty is the jargon for the REPEAT VIOLATORS rule. It is not a rule that deals with the severity of one occurrence. The school must, I believe, already be on NCAA probation.

Louisville is right in the crosshairs of this rule.

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I agree, but athletic departments really count on revenue from football and men's basketball, and losing one of those programs could have financial repercussions that spread to other sports. I'm not convinced the NCAA wants to do that.

Guitarsoup said:

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Good Aggie Hunting said:

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Soooo....

https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/comments/72u1wi/is_texas_ams_2015_recruiting_class_suspicious/

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There was nothing out of place on that class. Admon+Tyler were committed to us very early and knew it was a place they could get immediate time. They were close friends with DJ Hogg, and all were close to current players on the team.

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Tyler and Hogg were teammates on the Texas Titans with Avery Johnson Jr, and there was obviously a relationship there that helped in that recruitment.

But as this thing spreads it's not surprising that some people are going to pick out that class. It was way better than any of our classes before it and we had sucked on the court the years prior. That and Stansbury's connection to it.

I don't think we did anything shady, for the record, just saying it's not surprising that people are going to think we did.

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High school coaches don't like summer because of how important it's become to recruiting. There's less importance put on a player playing well at his high school than there is in the summer.

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High school coaches don't like summer because it teaches the players to play for themselves and not for a team -- particularly the HS team. It also exposes their players to coaches at other HSs who have been taking the opportunity to recruit these players to move to their school's district. This is a blatant violation of Texas and most states' rules. Yet nothing is done about it. High school coaches in Texas aren't doing a lot about this, and why? Likely because the ones that lose players to other programs are taking players themselves and don't want that cat out of the bag.

EKG1996 said:

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So all the head coaches just stay out of it and let their assistants do the dirty work?

Think the FBI is going to go after some head coaches?

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Hell yes

bobinator said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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Good Aggie Hunting said:

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Soooo....

https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/comments/72u1wi/is_texas_ams_2015_recruiting_class_suspicious/

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There was nothing out of place on that class. Admon+Tyler were committed to us very early and knew it was a place they could get immediate time. They were close friends with DJ Hogg, and all were close to current players on the team.

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Tyler and Hogg were teammates on the Texas Titans with Avery Johnson Jr, and there was obviously a relationship there that helped in that recruitment.

But as this thing spreads it's not surprising that some people are going to pick out that class. It was way better than any of our classes before it and we had sucked on the court the years prior. That and Stansbury's connection to it.

I don't think we did anything shady, for the record, just saying it's not surprising that people are going to think we did.

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They were over three years in on those guys before Stansbury was even a twinkle in BK's eyes. The first thing any of them said when asked about their recruitment is A&M was their first offer. Davis ranted and raved about his connection with Darby and all of them talked about their relationship with coach Keller.

Not saying this is anything you didn't know, but this is the rebuttal to that claim.

free_mhayden said:

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Bribery and fraud involving public employees and billion-dollar publicly traded companies is not going to be ignored.

Even if you don't think it's worth their time and there are no victims... well there's no significant victims YET. What if you lose your retirement fund investing in some company like Adidas and then find out the authorities knew rampant bribery and fraud was occurring and even being encouraged in their company and let it slide?

No doubt terrorism should be high on the list for the feds post-9/11, but rampant bribery and fraud by big businesses (especially involving government-assisted schools) should certainly not be ignored post-2000's financial crisis.

This has little to do with a handful of inner-city families not filing taxes on a couple hundred-thousand dollars. The Feds aren't really that concerned with going after that -- hell the IRS really isn't that concerned with that.

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Yeah, I would think that the FBI is most interested in nailing guys like that Adidas executive Jim Gatto, and any similar jokers at Nike, UA, etc. Than going after unpaid taxes by recruits families. Even these assistant coaches they've arrested are probably relatively small fish (whom they are hoping will flip and expose more evidence) compared to the bigger fish they are hoping to catch at the sports companies.

What stops Adidas from just creating an academy starting in high school

The fact that the players at said academy would likely be ineligible to play NCAA basketball?

But that's my point. It's not needed....there HAS to be a connection with NCAAs cash cow and these shoe companies.

For example here is a list of 2007-08 high school kids
http://www.maxpreps.com/m/article.aspx?articleid=805a32a3-e5f9-4686-8bc6-17a66008295e

That's a pretty amazing hit rate of making it to NBA....very rare for Steph Curry to come along. LeBron, Carmelo, Tim Duncan, etc were slam dunks.

Have an Academy. Sign them in high school...funnel to D League....it's got to be less expensive than bribing and funneling to these sleaze ball agents and AAU coaches

bobinator said:

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"AAU" in and of itself isn't a problem. AAU is actually really bad at branding apparently, because that's another false target like the NCAA.

This situation arose in basketball because pro basketball players are worth A LOT of money, a lot of kids who want to play pro basketball don't have any money, and it's relatively cheap for someone with a lot of money to fund them.

And you've set up a system where there is no free market. You can't just simply pay the best players for being the best players until they're 19-20 years old.

So you have a false market, with a lot of money in it, and that money is going to go somewhere. So it's going toward influencing the players. It's going to people around them, their coaches, their "handlers," or whoever who, in a lot of cases, don't have any money themselves. How can they refuse it?

But again, getting the best players together in the summer to play against each other isn't in and of itself a problem.

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Technically, I think AAU is Amateur Athletic Union, a real organization. summer Basketball that is in these cross hairs is not AAU sponsored. Just was always called "AAU ball", and still is in conversation, etc.

This may work out GREAT for the CBI if they allow teams on NCAA probation.

It was a better than normal class but not that unusual with classes in the recent past. We lost way more than we won so I'd be very surprised if we get caught up in this. tu, bu and OSU are much more likely suspects and one is already in trouble.

And now Bamas Director or Basketball Operations resigns:

https://yhoo.it/2fAvGOu

http://deadsp.in/ngqRVfu

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Baker's previous position with the NCAA specifically involved "processing information in cases of amateurism violations"

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