Not at all proud of Gilbert's involvement at UCLA, I will say this, UCLA was far from the only school who had boosters involved with players, they won because they had great talent, and great coaching. They'd already won several titles before Gilbert even got involved, in fact when the NCAA did put UCLA on probation after Brown left they specifically said that while some of violations dated back to Wooden's time as coach, that there was no evidence linking Wooden to the violations. That it was well documented that Wooden and UCLA had repeatedly warned Gilbert to stay away from the kids, but he kept doing it on his own. Doesn't make it right, but it wasn't a case of UCLA asking Gilbert to buy it recruits, Gilbert was just an extremely rich booster who had a distorted perception of what "friend of the program" was supposed to mean. I guess the best defense I can offer for him is that was over 25 years ago.
Believe me I hated Harrick, always did, always will. The very first recruit he ever contacted on behalf of UCLA, Don MacLean, resulted in an NCAA infraction for recruiting during a dead period. There was the whole mess with his son selling Baron Davis' sister a car, not a violation, in fact she paid more than bluebook for the used car, but the son of a coach should be smart enough to know he should avoid such a situation. Luckily Harrick finally got caught up with the Collins twins dinner scandal when assistant Michael holton refused to lie and say his wife attended the dinner. Not only did Harrick break rules, he's also the guy that left us Steve lavin.
the real controversy with Brandon Rush is that he attended 4 highschools including Mt Zion in NC which is kind of notorious for taking kids with bad grades and giving them good grades. They're one of the schools the NCAA is currently cracking down on, there's a bunch of those basketball factories that the NCAA is essentially "decertifying" so they will no longer count towards meeting NCAA requirements because the NCAA has determined they're not legitimately educating kids. I think IMG academy is on the same list, it's a prep school and ironically if Rush didn't get into Kansas, he was going to prep at IMG. Rush was already 20 when he signed with Kansas so if he'd wound up at IMG he was going straight from there to the NBA. rush made it perfectly clear in recruiting he was at most a 2 year player, probably 1. Illinois and Indiana were also involved with him as was USC until they decided he was never going to qualify. Apparently older brother Kareem is telling him to stay his soph year but Brandon himself recently admitted if he does, it'll take a lot of tutors and assistance because he realizes he can't take the same kind of classes next year as he has this year.
Believe me Brandon Rush is far from the only kid pretending to be a student in college basketball, I fully realize that. I'm just saying given the family history with Kansas, and the NCAA in general, I was amazed they actually signed the kid. I'd say if Kansas isn't in trouble with the NCAA in 5 years under Self it'll be a big shock to me. Self has in short time hired the dad of a recruit, signed Rush, and signed Micah downs who along with his dad was such a notorious jerk that a lot of schools just flat out stopped recruiting him. it came as no surprise to anybody when Downs transferred out midseason citing personal reasons at home. It just seems to me that Self is taking a lot of risks in who he's recruiting to KU, although I do really like Julian Wright I've read a lot about him and he seems to be one of those kids that truly understands what student athlete is supposed to mean. I just wish Self was recruiting more kids like Wright.
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