Are the FBI charges just the tip of the iceberg in college basketball?
Idealistic alumni and fans may have been surprised by the blockbuster news that came out this week about a shoe company and agents buying college basketball recruits, but those close to the game have been expecting it for years.
Apparently, that is how widespread the cheating has become, although it is a lot more sophisticated than assistant coaches FedEx-ing envelopes of cash to the most highly sought prospects. The tip of the iceberg may indeed be the seven schools implicated in the first report, a securities felon who rolled over to tip off the FBI and a shoe company that funneled money to coaches, as well as players and their families, so the kid ends up wearing and endorsing – in this case – Adidas.
Other shoe companies that bid for player endorsements may be later exposed, but right now any college with an Adidas contract had better be worried. The FBI can wire tap, plant cameras and eventually issues subpoenas to all key witnesses, compared to what the toothless NCAA investigators can do. Don’t be surprised if N.C. State winds up in the headlines, based on stories about Adidas and Dennis Smith Jr. that have been circulating for the last three years.
It’s all about trying to keep up with blue bloods like Duke, Carolina and Kentucky, which are all Nike schools and don’t have to buy players because they have a track record of getting the top recruits and sending them on to the NBA, the ultimate goal of any kid who laces them up. The other schools are all trying to get to Final Fours and not have coaches who can be here today and gone tomorrow.
If Rick Pitino is still coaching Louisville when the Tar Heels visit there in February, it will continue to be the greatest escape act since Houdini. Pitino has admitted to just one scandal that has plagued him at Louisville, because it was him who had sex with a woman after hours in a restaurant. Louisville, the rogue member of the ACC, kept Pitino after that and again after the NCAA lowered the boom for an assistant coach hiring hookers to entertain Cardinals players and recruits.
Another of Pitino’s assistants is involved in the latest scandal with Adidas, but Rick again claims he knows nothing about how a five-star stud fell into his lap on virtually the last day of the summer. Here’s a Hall of Fame coach who has been up to his eyeballs in scandal for years at a school that covers his keister every time. Maybe, at last, not this time.
Will Pitino and Louisville be the last big-time schools to be caught red-handed? Likely not, as the NCAA will have plenty to work with thanks to the FBI’s chance involvement that may prove how out of control college basketball truly is.
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