Miller once again does it again!

[Russ Smith]

Regardless of who is on the board, the charter and rules/regulations still exist and are followed to a tee.

Turning a blind eye? What are you talking about? This is about the ramifications of a system that makes BILLIONS of dollars and doesn't give the kids a dime. It actually has more in common with slavery than anything. How is that NOT a problem?

I don't like the NCAA either but given what just was unveiled here do you really think paying the players would stop it? You don't think schools would still pay kids under the table to get them even if everyone already got paid?

 

[Russ Smith]

Yeah but if the FBI did contact Miller (which I'm 100% skeptical of) maybe they instructed him not to interfere, and perhaps even allow, these things to unfold to allow the FBI's operation to succeed. I don't believe a word I just typed.

Right that's one possible conclusion to draw but why just Miller? Or did they do the same thing with Enfield and the other head coaches.

also, when did Book start taking money from these guys and when did the FBI undercovers guys get involved with book, I don't think it fits the 2 year timeline that is being claimed elsewhere. The FBI sting part of this they didn't involve Book until Feb 2017, the Walker and Bowen things were presumably from the Adidas part of the case and nobody has claimed Book was involved in that at all, that I'm aware of. He was involved in asking for money for Quinerly, and he was probably involved in Little, but I haven't seen anywhere where it says he asked someone to pay Walker or Bowen. Again as others have said, there's no evidence Arizona offered to pay either kid, it's entirely likely that's why UA didn't get either kid, because they didn't pay them.

So to believe the FBI told miller angle we're believing the FBI contacted him to tell him that 2 kids he was recruiting were being bought by shoe companies, and remember Miami is NOT Adidas they're Nike so there is this weird element of 2 Nike schools competing for the same recruit, if Walker got paid who paid him, if it was Nike how did they pick which school to send him to? Why would they tell miller that about 2 other schools if Arizona wasn't paying the kids, and how did they tell him 2 years ago that in Feb of 17 Book was going to agree to a deal with Sood and the undercover FBI guys?

Unless Book was dirty 2 years ago and the FBI just left that out, or I missed it, the timeline just doesn't match up

 

[TJ]

Totally missed his point. He's a sting you SHOULD be mad at CONGRESS for making the laws, not the IRS for enforcing them.

Then you missed my point regarding how Congress generates its votes compared to the enforcement of punishment.

 

[Raindog]

Just recently getting up to speed on this scandal - I don't know to what if any extent is Sean Miller's involvement, culpability, or knowledge of what was going on under his watch. But one thing I can say with certainty is that the anonymous poster on Beardown.com or wherever it is that claims he has "inside information" that the FBI "tipped off" Sean Miller is so full of crap, it is comical. I personally worked for federal law enforcement for three years, and have family that were long time employees in a federal criminal investigative capacity... the one thing the FBI is certainly NOT doing is tipping off close associates of suspects they are investigating, who may very well also be implicated in the investigation, months before they have a cut and dried case against the suspect. The timeline of what this supposed "insider" is suggesting is ridiculous, nevermind the other crap he/she is making up about Sean Miller being some kind of deep cover "mole" for the FBI.

Again, I don't know if there is or isn't any evidence or suggestion of evidence that Miller is implicated in the criminal aspect of the case. My belief is that at least there isn't enough evidence to suggest so, or it would probably have already come out. But to think (as Mr. Insider suggests) that the NCAA is going to look the other way on all of this because Miller was "working with the FBI" is some pretty funny self delusion. Miller may well not have any direct provable connection to what Richardson was doing on the side, but it seems entirely likely that he could have/should have known that at least two of his chief assistants were funneling money to recruits, which is EXACTLY on what the NCAA is going to come down hard. I am almost 100% certain when all is said and done, they are going to significantly ding the program, and it is a bettor's odds that Miller ends up being canned.

 

[TJ]

After three days of letting the shock of this news dissipate and drowning out the internet lawyers and federal agents, here's where I currently stand on this matter:

• There is nothing good about being named in an FBI case. Nothing. The appearance is bad, the implications are bad, the follow up is bad. UofA looks like a dirty program. There's no sugar coating it.
• More than likely, UofA will receive an NCAA punishment. To what degree remains to be seen. It all depends on what information is revealed moving forward and how the NCAA plans to follow up after the FBI is finished.
• The UofA isn't going to fire Miller unless it has very good reason to do so. Pitino got fired because he was named in the FBI document and UL is fresh off of the hooker scandal. This is Miller's first "scandal" to date. The university will bend over backwards to assist until it feels that assisting will only further damage the school.
• That said, despite all of the conjecture, hearsay, and jumping to conclusions, there is only one irrefutable fact implicating any wrongdoing about Arizona in the document: Book Richardson took money. There isn't any solid evidence confirming he gave money to any recruit (including Quinerly) or was bidding on any players (including Little or Walker). If nothing else comes out ever, this makes it look like Richardson was pocketing money. The rest of the information, including stuff about current players and a potential second coach, is all open to interpretation. But for now, Book taking money is the only proof that's available.
• Book's name only solidly appears in the report around March of this year.
• I do not actually believe that Miller had advanced contact with the Feds dating back months or years, but I do know that he met with them Tuesday morning when the report came out.
• The NCAA has to be a little embarrassed by the feds being involved, but like I said earlier, the NCAA is just as guilty as others about financially benefitting from the existence of a competitive shoe market. As a result, I'm not certain how exactly it'll proceed once the FBI has finished up. Will it go overboard and try to excessively punish the schools listed in the report? Will it focus on reform?
• I don't think the FBI will do the NCAA favors, and both entities tend to operate at a snail's pace. If the NCAA decides it needs to punish people, it'll be down the road. For Arizona, likely means if nothing else of significance comes out in a hurry, it'll be punished after the season. 2017-2018 will run like nothing happened.
• The only outcome that would surprise me is if Arizona gets off scot-free.
  
• This is not just an Arizona issue, this is a collegiate-wide epidemic. Obviously, UofA has been named in the report, and as a result, it needs to be discussed thoroughly, but the reality is this behavior is happening across the nation. The fact that more schools, shoe companies, and agents have been investigated since Tuesday shows how wide the net is cast. I firmly believe that no school is safe, and that includes further allegations against UofA. Obviously, my hope is that UofA comes out as clean as possible, but from a macro view, the world of recruitment is going to change exponentially. My hope is that the influence of AAU teams and shoe companies dissolves.

 

[GatorAZ]

After three days of letting the shock of this news dissipate and drowning out the internet lawyers and federal agents, here's where I currently stand on this matter:

• There is nothing good about being named in an FBI case. Nothing. The appearance is bad, the implications are bad, the follow up is bad. UofA looks like a dirty program. There's no sugar coating it.
• More than likely, UofA will receive an NCAA punishment. To what degree remains to be seen. It all depends on what information is revealed moving forward and how the NCAA plans to follow up after the FBI is finished.
• The UofA isn't going to fire Miller unless it has very good reason to do so. Pitino got fired because he was named in the FBI document and UL is fresh off of the hooker scandal. This is Miller's first "scandal" to date. The university will bend over backwards to assist until it feels that assisting will only further damage the school.
• That said, despite all of the conjecture, hearsay, and jumping to conclusions, there is only one irrefutable fact implicating any wrongdoing about Arizona in the document: Book Richardson took money. There isn't any solid evidence confirming he gave money to any recruit (including Quinerly) or was bidding on any players (including Little or Walker). If nothing else comes out ever, this makes it look like Richardson was pocketing money. The rest of the information, including stuff about current players and a potential second coach, is all open to interpretation. But for now, Book taking money is the only proof that's available.
• Book's name only solidly appears in the report around March of this year.
• I do not actually believe that Miller had advanced contact with the Feds dating back months or years, but I do know that he met with them Tuesday morning when the report came out.
• The NCAA has to be a little embarrassed by the feds being involved, but like I said earlier, the NCAA is just as guilty as others about financially benefitting from the existence of a competitive shoe market. As a result, I'm not certain how exactly it'll proceed once the FBI has finished up. Will it go overboard and try to excessively punish the schools listed in the report? Will it focus on reform?
• I don't think the FBI will do the NCAA favors, and both entities tend to operate at a snail's pace. If the NCAA decides it needs to punish people, it'll be down the road. For Arizona, likely means if nothing else of significance comes out in a hurry, it'll be punished after the season. 2017-2018 will run like nothing happened.
• The only outcome that would surprise me is if Arizona gets off scot-free.
  
• This is not just an Arizona issue, this is a collegiate-wide epidemic. Obviously, UofA has been named in the report, and as a result, it needs to be discussed thoroughly, but the reality is this behavior is happening across the nation. The fact that more schools, shoe companies, and agents have been investigated since Tuesday shows how wide the net is cast. I firmly believe that no school is safe, and that includes further allegations against UofA. Obviously, my hope is that UofA comes out as clean as possible, but from a macro view, the world of recruitment is going to change exponentially. My hope is that the influence of AAU teams and shoe companies dissolves.

There's definitely been some chatter regarding the "Book kept the money" angle of late. It's kinda odd to me that Louisville, Auburn and Ok st are losing recruits but Quinerly remains committed yet his name was directly linked in this. If they feel there's nothing to hide then why not stay committed I suppose. Man imagine if either investigation drags on and Quinerly still ends up coming here LOL.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Miller is screwed. Sorry.

Nah, likely a one year Tournament ban and a loss of a couple scholarships. Maybe some vacated wins.

People seem to forget how quickly NCAA "scandals" always blow over.

 

[Russ Smith]

There's definitely been some chatter regarding the "Book kept the money" angle of late. It's kinda odd to me that Louisville, Auburn and Ok st are losing recruits but Quinerly remains committed yet his name was directly linked in this. If they feel there's nothing to hide then why not stay committed I suppose. Man imagine if either investigation drags on and Quinerly still ends up coming here LOL.

FWiW I don't want to go back through the entire thing again but there IS a place in the documents where they make mention of Quinerly having gotten the money, but I don't think it's from the FBI, it's from either Sood or Dawkins.So it's still possible they gave the money to Book and he kept it, but people that were on tape, not knowing they were on tape, have said Quinerly took the money.

Also in the same part one of Sood or Dawkins says that Book had "been taking care of him for awhile" which I took to mean he'd been paying Quinerly before. in fact they said it would take "another 15K" to get him to commit, which implied he'd already gotten money. None of that is proof, nowhere in there does it say they have Quinerly on tape saying he got the money, but this is the FBI, they don't put that stuff out there if they're not pretty confident they're right.

Also the only reason we know Bowen is out at Louisville is they fired Pitino and Jurich and told us one player, not named but we all know it's Bowen, had been removed from all team activities. Since Nobody has been fired at UA and Quinerly is a year out, it's not a surprise there's been no announcement on him.

Lots of denials right now, the AAU team for Little is insisting the family didn't ask for money, meanwhile the head of that AAU team is in jail for this exact case. at this point I don't think the denials are a surprise these are not mafia people they're basketball coaches and players who until Tues had no idea they were being watched and listened to. I imagine right now they're all just hoping this goes away and haven't yet got to the point where if they're guilty, they realize their best course of action is telling the feds the truth.

it will be fascinating to see if any team self reports, The FBI set up a hotline for that and said if you are doing this stuff, tell us, it will be better if you tell us first.

There's a blurb in one of the thousands of stories where they quote an ex NCAA enforcement official and she says the difference here is the leverage the FBI has. That they often got tips and info when she worked for the NCAA but nothing would come of it because they didn't have that leverage. If you read what she says she' vaguely refers to something that almost has to be the allegation Anthony Davis got paid to go to Kentucky. I always wondered about that one because usually reporters are well aware of the rules of proof so when he put that in print, you had to assume he was pretty sure it was true. My guess is after reading that story it was true, the NCAA thought so too, but couldn't prove it. I think the lady threw that out there as a subtle warning to UK, that they might be one of the schools who should self report.

Also Duke and UNC both say they have not been contacted by the FBI, that's because they both got involved with Little VERY late in the recruitment, at the time this alleged bidding war was happening. So they know full well that when people do the math they're going to immediately assume Duke and UNC might have been bidding too. All 4 of those schools are nike so that wouldn't have been 2 shoe companies bidding, if there was an actual bid involved, it was from other sources than shoe companies?

not surprised at all Miller hasn't commented, why would he at this point the players involved are all protectedby privacy laws and he's not going to comment on an active FBI case

 

[Russ Smith]

Just recently getting up to speed on this scandal - I don't know to what if any extent is Sean Miller's involvement, culpability, or knowledge of what was going on under his watch. But one thing I can say with certainty is that the anonymous poster on Beardown.com or wherever it is that claims he has "inside information" that the FBI "tipped off" Sean Miller is so full of crap, it is comical. I personally worked for federal law enforcement for three years, and have family that were long time employees in a federal criminal investigative capacity... the one thing the FBI is certainly NOT doing is tipping off close associates of suspects they are investigating, who may very well also be implicated in the investigation, months before they have a cut and dried case against the suspect. The timeline of what this supposed "insider" is suggesting is ridiculous, nevermind the other crap he/she is making up about Sean Miller being some kind of deep cover "mole" for the FBI.

Again, I don't know if there is or isn't any evidence or suggestion of evidence that Miller is implicated in the criminal aspect of the case. My belief is that at least there isn't enough evidence to suggest so, or it would probably have already come out. But to think (as Mr. Insider suggests) that the NCAA is going to look the other way on all of this because Miller was "working with the FBI" is some pretty funny self delusion. Miller may well not have any direct provable connection to what Richardson was doing on the side, but it seems entirely likely that he could have/should have known that at least two of his chief assistants were funneling money to recruits, which is EXACTLY on what the NCAA is going to come down hard. I am almost 100% certain when all is said and done, they are going to significantly ding the program, and it is a bettor's odds that Miller ends up being canned.

I was reading it over again last night and unless I totally missed something there's no way the tipped off Miller thing is true. To back off Bowen and Walker he would have needed to know almost a year ago, and yet the FBI stuff with Book doesn't start until Feb 2017. I don't find anywhere in there where the FBI could have told Miller before Walker committed that Book was dirty and that's what 97cats originally said, the FBI tipped him off about those players AND about what Book was doing.

To do that the FBI had to be psychic because unless I'm missing it, they didn't have Book doing anything yet. nothing ties him to the alleged payments until the Feb 17 stuff.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

It is insulting to call it slavery - no one is forcing the kids to go to college, and no one is forcing them to stay there. And while they don't get much compensation (At most big schools, they get $4-7K for Full cost of Attendance), they get free schooling, room, board.

Most of the money made in the tourney goes to support other sports and championships.

And even if the basketball players were paid, say $50K each, it pales in comparison to what the shoe companies were paying them.

The slavery comparison is nonsense I agree.

I've always felt NCAA players shouldn't be paid because Saquon Barkley and Northwestern's long snapper don't create equal revenue. But I do feel adults should be able to monetize their own name, image, and likeness rights regardless if they're a student or not.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Man... if it proves to be that Miller knew, was cheating AND couldn't multiple underachieving 1/2 seeds to the Final Four, while ALSO putting a MASSIVE black spot on the program, that would be an epic disaster.

Dude, Penn State was literally covering up the molestation of children for decades and got a two year bowl ban and got docked some scholarships. Louisville's coaches were hiring hookers for their players and they got a 1 year Tournament ban and lost a couple scholarships. UNC's players never took a class in college and they just won the NC.

I know we're supposed to be reactionary but either th NCAA will give a couple slaps on the wrists and the golden goose will keep laying eggs or they can throw the book at everyone and kill said golden goose and cost themselves literally billions of dollars. I wonder which way they're going to go...

 

[GatorAZ]

FWiW I don't want to go back through the entire thing again but there IS a place in the documents where they make mention of Quinerly having gotten the money, but I don't think it's from the FBI, it's from either Sood or Dawkins.So it's still possible they gave the money to Book and he kept it, but people that were on tape, not knowing they were on tape, have said Quinerly took the money.

Also in the same part one of Sood or Dawkins says that Book had "been taking care of him for awhile" which I took to mean he'd been paying Quinerly before. in fact they said it would take "another 15K" to get him to commit, which implied he'd already gotten money. None of that is proof, nowhere in there does it say they have Quinerly on tape saying he got the money, but this is the FBI, they don't put that stuff out there if they're not pretty confident they're right.

Also the only reason we know Bowen is out at Louisville is they fired Pitino and Jurich and told us one player, not named but we all know it's Bowen, had been removed from all team activities. Since Nobody has been fired at UA and Quinerly is a year out, it's not a surprise there's been no announcement on him.

Lots of denials right now, the AAU team for Little is insisting the family didn't ask for money, meanwhile the head of that AAU team is in jail for this exact case. at this point I don't think the denials are a surprise these are not mafia people they're basketball coaches and players who until Tues had no idea they were being watched and listened to. I imagine right now they're all just hoping this goes away and haven't yet got to the point where if they're guilty, they realize their best course of action is telling the feds the truth.

it will be fascinating to see if any team self reports, The FBI set up a hotline for that and said if you are doing this stuff, tell us, it will be better if you tell us first.

There's a blurb in one of the thousands of stories where they quote an ex NCAA enforcement official and she says the difference here is the leverage the FBI has. That they often got tips and info when she worked for the NCAA but nothing would come of it because they didn't have that leverage. If you read what she says she' vaguely refers to something that almost has to be the allegation Anthony Davis got paid to go to Kentucky. I always wondered about that one because usually reporters are well aware of the rules of proof so when he put that in print, you had to assume he was pretty sure it was true. My guess is after reading that story it was true, the NCAA thought so too, but couldn't prove it. I think the lady threw that out there as a subtle warning to UK, that they might be one of the schools who should self report.

Also Duke and UNC both say they have not been contacted by the FBI, that's because they both got involved with Little VERY late in the recruitment, at the time this alleged bidding war was happening. So they know full well that when people do the math they're going to immediately assume Duke and UNC might have been bidding too. All 4 of those schools are nike so that wouldn't have been 2 shoe companies bidding, if there was an actual bid involved, it was from other sources than shoe companies?

not surprised at all Miller hasn't commented, why would he at this point the players involved are all protectedby privacy laws and he's not going to comment on an active FBI case

Two payments are possible...

June 20th - FBI wiretap recorded a June conversation between Dawkins and Richardson, in which the two discuss a high school basketball player that Richardson was going to pay to come play for the UA, the complaint says.

Sometime in July -
Dawkins told an undercover agent that Richardson needed another $15,000 to secure the player, whom Dawkins identified as a “top point guard in the country,” according to the complaint.

July 20 - On July 20, in a meeting at Sood’s New Jersey office, Richardson collected the $15,000 and told Sood and an undercover agent that the player in question had committed, but his mother was asking for money because “she didn’t know what I was already doing for her son,” the complaint says.

Quinerly didn't commit until August 8th...

 

[Russ Smith]

Two payments are possible...

June 20th - FBI wiretap recorded a June conversation between Dawkins and Richardson, in which the two discuss a high school basketball player that Richardson was going to pay to come play for the UA, the complaint says.

Sometime in July -
Dawkins told an undercover agent that Richardson needed another $15,000 to secure the player, whom Dawkins identified as a “top point guard in the country,” according to the complaint.

July 20 - On July 20, in a meeting at Sood’s New Jersey office, Richardson collected the $15,000 and told Sood and an undercover agent that the player in question had committed, but his mother was asking for money because “she didn’t know what I was already doing for her son,” the complaint says.

Quinerly didn't commit until August 8th...

Yes there are 2 payments referred to in the documents because he says Book was already taking care of Quinerly before the 15K.

I'm not remembering wehre I saw it but there is somewhere in there where one of the people talks about it in the past tenseas the kid has the money. It's not the one where they said that kid has already been paid, it's separate. But it's still someone else saying he has been paid not him himself saying it.

I do agree with what TJ and Mao etc are saying, nobody thinks these schools in this story are alone in this and if the FBI had the same access to others they'd find just as much or more dirt there.

Essentially every big name recruit that has committed in the timeframe of this and took money is shaking in his boots wondering if the FBI has info on him too, or yet.

 

[Russ Smith]

The agent Dawkins involved in this scandal has 3 current NBA players who played for his AAU program in recent times, Kyle Kuzma, Jaylen Johnson and Josh Jackson. Jackson of course went to Kansas and johnson went to Louisville which are both Adidas programs. But there's no suggestion yet anything nefarious happened, Dawkins left that program in 2015 to work for Andy Miller so the timeline wouldn't make much sense for steering players

 

[gmabel830]

The agent Dawkins involved in this scandal has 3 current NBA players who played for his AAU program in recent times, Kyle Kuzma, Jaylen Johnson and Josh Jackson. Jackson of course went to Kansas and johnson went to Louisville which are both Adidas programs. But there's no suggestion yet anything nefarious happened, Dawkins left that program in 2015 to work for Andy Miller so the timeline wouldn't make much sense for steering players

The only reasonable conclusion is that KU are dirty rotten cheaters!

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[Russ Smith]

The only reasonable conclusion is that KU are dirty rotten cheaters!

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Well if Jackson got steered remember who the runnerup was... arizona.

The Zion rumor thing I have no clue on, I've never heard of that site before and there's basically no indication at all there's steering, they're just saying the rumor is Adidas was steering him with no explanation why they say that.

One could just as easily claim Bagley was steered to Duke by Nike there's more evidence of that than there is against Zion IMO.

 

[GatorAZ]

Shame on us for low-balling JJ. Can't compete with Blue Bloods that way.

 

[Russ Smith]

Shame on us for low-balling JJ. Can't compete with Blue Bloods that way.

I don't know if he got money or not his recruitment was odd all along because there were so many rumors he never intended to go to college and then in the end it turned out he was actually a good student and his mom said they never considered going pro. who knows what was true

http://uschoops.com/vbulletin/forum...-what-is-going-on-with-fbi-doj-investigationshttp://uschoops.com/vbulletin/forum...-what-is-going-on-with-fbi-doj-investigations

Long thread but if you want see legal analysis of what's going on read that. Chase is a USC fan and lawyer who's defending USC and shipwreckedcrew is a UCLA fan and a former Federal Prosecutor who's explaining in great detail why Chase is wrong.

The gist of it is people saying this is a rogue coach who defrauded ARizona, are misunderstanding why the FBI used that wording. The statute, USC 666 requires that they show someone acted "corruptly" in order to charge him with a federal crime. In this case the corrupt act was a coach knowingly breaking NCAA rules in violation of his contract. They aren't actually saying ARizona and USC etc are the victims here, they're saying in order to charge these guys and get them to talk, we had to show they acted corruptly and used that angle.

 

[DWKB]

Shame on us for low-balling JJ. Can't compete with Blue Bloods that way.

Well you did pay us back with Ayton.

 

[GatorAZ]

Well you did pay us back with Ayton.

Saying my Hail Mary's he's eligible. When there were reports of a player allegedly getting benefits I figured it was him considering his ranking but Book didn't recruit him.

 

[Russ Smith]

Tony Bland hired an attorney to defend him in his criminal complaint by the FBI. The guy lists among his former clients, John Gotti, and El Chapo!

 

[TJ]

Tony Bland hired an attorney to defend him in his criminal complaint by the FBI. The guy lists among his former clients, John Gotti, and El Chapo!

Sounds like Bland thinks he can get the fbi to dismiss all charges. Interesting.

 

[GatorAZ]

I've heard some questionable things about Book's attorney. Apparently it's a guy from Tucson who some folks around the program aren't crazy about. Definitely sounds like Bland has some firepower.

 

[Russ Smith]

Sounds like Bland thinks he can get the fbi to dismiss all charges. Interesting.

I haven't seen that, the lawyer said they don't expect to challenge him being placed on leave at all, but maybe that's just because he understands why USC had to do that even if he turns out to be innocent.

We'll find out but the guy on BRO who's a former Federal prosecutor keeps telling us he'd be amazed if the FBI doesn't have enough to prove these guys did what they said. He said as soon as he read they used wire taps he knew they had the guys, apparently the burden of proof to get permission to use a wiretap is VERY high, they can't just be suspicious and ask for one. They need to have all sorts of requirements met to get approval to wiretap and that's why the FBI has such a high conviction rate in these cases, they almost never get this far if they're not right.

 

[overseascardfan]

Watch the Wire, warrants for wiretaps need to be very specific and sometimes those caught red handed find a way out (not just on the show but in real life). I find it odd that FBI is putting out schools to self disclose before they find dirt on them. If they are going to get the info then why offer leniency for self reporting? I mean they've taken it this far.