Miller once again does it again!

[Russ Smith]

He's a prosecution witness combating the defense's claim that the schools were in on it. He said that they kept it secret from the schools.

He said he personally met with Self and told him we're here to help you with recruiting. I don't think that's keeping it secret from the schools.

 

[Russ Smith]

Adidas must have been PO’d when Ayton didn’t choose Kansas. I guess we have to pretend Ayton never played for Arizona just like Reggie Bush never played for USC.

Right now it sounds more like Adidas and Kansas than Arizona but again, does anybody really believe players kept turning down money from other sources and picking Arizona for free? Possible, sure, plausible, no, likely no.

I think the big thing is Ayton's lawyer publicly said he told the FBI under oath he never took money, if that's not true, he lied to the FBI. Again I doubt they really care I don't think the players are the target here, but it is interesting if true. Bowen Sr admitted yesterday he lied to the FBI twice and tried to hide details from them by destroying a phone.

 

[Russ Smith]

Didn't take long for someone to top Bowen Sr for being completely without conscience.

TJ Gassnola from a Yahoo story.

"A guilty plea on conspiracy charges is just the start. Gassnola acknowledged on the stand that he’s defrauded people by passing sham checks, used the charitable foundation attached to his AAU program to pay himself, failed to pay taxes for years, cheated on loan applications and operated unethically in the real estate and car business, among other travails. It took the government 15 minutes to explain all his scams and schemes to the jury in an effort to take the heat off when the defense brings it all up and blisters him later for being an unreliable lout."

Apparently the meeting with Self was 2014 and it's going to be the centerpiece of tomorrow's testimony. They need to get him to clarify what he meant by "we're here to help you" and then they need to clarify if Kansas and Self had the same concept of what it meant. Depending on when it was it was either the 14 class of Cliff Alexander and Kelly Oubre, or the 15 class with Bragg and Diallo. He also met with coaches at UCLA, Louisville and miami not clear what year. but Alford was hired in 13 so its' almost assuredly Alford that he met with.

If Gassnola sounds familiar he worked with the Adidas backed AAU program the New England Playaz which has been in trouble with the NCAA multiple times.

Here's a story from 2006 detailing what a bad guy Gassnola is. Among other things he apparently had been driving without a valid license from 1993 to 2006.


https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/...ip-recruits/2LoRNAv71WTWsBUmHI2zzL/story.html

 

[GatorAZ]

Right now it sounds more like Adidas and Kansas than Arizona but again, does anybody really believe players kept turning down money from other sources and picking Arizona for free? Possible, sure, plausible, no, likely no.

I think the big thing is Ayton's lawyer publicly said he told the FBI under oath he never took money, if that's not true, he lied to the FBI. Again I doubt they really care I don't think the players are the target here, but it is interesting if true. Bowen Sr admitted yesterday he lied to the FBI twice and tried to hide details from them by destroying a phone.

Ayton’s dad may be in trouble if he lied to the FBI. I’m not sure how they can prove where Deandre knew or didn’t know. The worst thing that will happen to him is like I said being blackballed from the Arizona record books; stats, awards, possible getting inducted into the ring of honor etc... He’s in the NBA and a millionaire now so I doubt it would have a life changing affect on him.

 

[Russ Smith]

Ayton’s dad may be in trouble if he lied to the FBI. I’m not sure how they can prove where Deandre knew or didn’t know. The worst thing that will happen to him is like I said being blackballed from the Arizona record books; stats, awards, possible getting inducted into the ring of honor etc... He’s in the NBA and a millionaire now so I doubt it would have a life changing affect on him.

Well DeAndre himself said he told the FBI he'd never done it so if that's true, and if he had taken money from Adidas then it's lying to the FBI. If you mean he didn't know and his dad or family had done it I guess that's different yes. I don't think the FBI is targeting the kids so I doubt Ayton would have much to worry about. I think we learned that in the Mayo case where the feds declined to pursue anything against him including the IRS when it was obvious he'd received thousands in cash and gifts and paid no taxes on it. There was apparently a brief blurb on CNBC about the case where people discussed potential SEC violations if the shoe companies were passing off fraudulent invoices to cover these payments.

 

[Lefty]

Even if Ayton knew his family received money from Adidas, all he has to say is he did not know. The FBI is going after the shoe companies. Sean Miller should not even be mentioned in this because there is no evidence that he knew. The NCAA can't do anything to the UofA and I doubt the FBI will do anything to Ayton or his family.

 

[Russ Smith]

Even if Ayton knew his family received money from Adidas, all he has to say is he did not know. The FBI is going after the shoe companies. Sean Miller should not even be mentioned in this because there is no evidence that he knew. The NCAA can't do anything to the UofA and I doubt the FBI will do anything to Ayton or his family.

I agree but if he knew and lied to the FBI I find that interesting. I just can't imagine at any age lying to the FBI, especially to protect the type of people involved. The claim is they paid 15K to a family friend fo Ayton's because Gassnola says they felt sorry for how poor the family was and wanted to build a relationship with Ayton and Adidas. he played one tournament for Adidas and then moved on to Nike. THe guy they paid was Larnelle Johnson who is allegedly the guy who discovered Ayton at a camp when he was 12 years old and helped broker a deal forhim to move to San Diego. So he's not actually Ayton's family which probably helps Ayton in regards to the payment and his eligibility. If that's the only money that changed hands I would expect Ayton would be fine, he can clearly argue he's not family, he took the money on his own, you can see that I only played 1 tourney for Adidas so clearly that money didn't have any strings attached etc.

The Billy Preston stuff is getting funny. His mom apparently tried to cover wired money she got from Gassnola by lying to Kansas and saying she and Gassnola were having an intimate relationship. his mom of course is rather well known and outspoken as being gay, she said it was one of the main reasons he eventually left his HS and AAU team in So Cal, that he'd been bullied and teased for years about his 2 moms and they decided it was time to get him into a better situation. KU must have paid attention to that they apparently didn't believe her story and suspended him. This was after his car accident in a car his mom had bought with money from Gassnola, and then registered the car in her moms name. She said when the mom died they gave the car to Billy, KU questioned it then found the wire transfers and suspended him.

 

[Russ Smith]

Gassnola said today that they were offering 150 K To Naz Little's AAU coach because Arizona and Nike were offering that much .But so far no details on how he knew or if he could prove it.

 

[GatorAZ]

xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media

Schlabach sweating more than Miller vs Wichita St.

 

[TJ]

xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media

Schlabach sweating more than Miller vs Wichita St.

Open season now on Schlabach and ESPN. There’s this, too:

xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media

 

[GatorAZ]

This is getting silly. I expected to see concrete evidence and so far nothing.

 

[TJ]

This is getting silly. I expected to see concrete evidence and so far nothing.

This whole thing is a giant pile of dogsh!t. I think this defense is terrible. Dawkins and Gatto are going to get nailed. They should’ve take plea deals

 

[Willie D]

I always have to chortle when the FBI shows up at someone's door, conducts an interview, and then leave. At which point said interviewee proudly claims, "Well, The Feds showed up and left. I must be innocent." Didn't the same thing happen with Jason Grimsley? Memo: when the feds show up at your door, it's only the beginning.

Barcello

Is he the son of Ed Barcello from Brophy Prep? Man those guys downed some lines in their day, and I ain't talkin' about working for APS.

 

[Russ Smith]

xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media

Schlabach sweating more than Miller vs Wichita St.

I'm not sure why you think a trial of 2 former Adidas guys and an AAU guy who worked for Adidas would involve something that wouldn't have involved Adidas but would have been Nike? It was always apparent THIS trial if Ayton was involved, was going to be about Kansas and adidas, not Arizona.

FYI if you read Norlander, he says that Gassnola said under oath today he paid the family friend of Ayton and the money was supposed to go to Ayton's mom so if that's true, it's back to Ayton lying to the FBI.

on the Ramker stuff that TJ quoted, first off, you guys do realize ramker was one of the AAU coaches who got nailed by the NCAA(Gassnola was one of the 4 too) in 2012 because they got caught breaking rules? An email from Andy Miller to them complaining they weren't doing their jobs and bringing him more future 1st round picks got leaked and it was Miller complaining they were all expecting to get paid and yet they weren't doing their job funneling kids(HS kids) to Andy Miller(an NBA agent). All 4 teams were banned from some summer events and 3 of the coaches, including Ramker and Gassnola were barred by the NCAA for awhile. So listening to a tape where ramker tries to downplay how dirty the whole system is when he was already nailed before rings kind of self serving to me. Gassnola has been in trouble with the NCAA at least twice before, it's appalling that he's still being paid by an AAU program.

So saying Gassnola, Gatto etc are not credible and then citing Matt Ramker as a voice of reason is kind of silly, he CLEARLY has an agenda here he is one of teh guys that has been breaking rules for years, it's entirely likely if this case goes forward he's going to get dragged into it too. Of course he wants to say Dawkins was exaggerating and bragging.

All that said, so far based on what I've heard I would not be surprised if hes' right and many of the people get off as not guilty, not because they weren't participating in cheating, but because so far I haven't seen enough proof. I think we've seen some evidence Smith Jr got paid, Bowen clearly did. It's starting to look like Ayton did via the family friend, but I haven't seen any evidence yet that directly links Arizona.

We have more than half the Pac 12 allegedly involved in getting help to try and get Bowen. I think ironically UCLA's best defense is why in the world would Adidas bid against themselves? Unless the alleged UCLA inquiry into Bowen happened after they switched to Under Armour and they were the ones involved, why would Adidas offer to help steer him to UCLA and at the same time pay him 100K to go to Louisville? But I don't know the exact timeline on when Bowen and UCLA were involved, it may have been after Under Armour came in, in which case it makes sense.

So I'm at the same place, I know these kids get paid, I highly doubt they chose zero money over lots of money, so presumably they got paid to go to Arizona, USC, Oregon, UCLA etc by someone. but so far it doesn't appear the FBI has proven that. So far it appears they've probably proven Louisville and kansas got players because Adidas paid them, but again that's because it's Adidas people on trial right now.

Those predicting the case is dropped after this trial seems unlikely with trials of assistant coaches coming up, but we'll see.

 

[GatorAZ]

I'm not sure why you think a trial of 2 former Adidas guys and an AAU guy who worked for Adidas would involve something that wouldn't have involved Adidas but would have been Nike? It was always apparent THIS trial if Ayton was involved, was going to be about Kansas and adidas, not Arizona.

FYI if you read Norlander, he says that Gassnola said under oath today he paid the family friend of Ayton and the money was supposed to go to Ayton's mom so if that's true, it's back to Ayton lying to the FBI.

on the Ramker stuff that TJ quoted, first off, you guys do realize ramker was one of the AAU coaches who got nailed by the NCAA(Gassnola was one of the 4 too) in 2012 because they got caught breaking rules? An email from Andy Miller to them complaining they weren't doing their jobs and bringing him more future 1st round picks got leaked and it was Miller complaining they were all expecting to get paid and yet they weren't doing their job funneling kids(HS kids) to Andy Miller(an NBA agent). All 4 teams were banned from some summer events and 3 of the coaches, including Ramker and Gassnola were barred by the NCAA for awhile. So listening to a tape where ramker tries to downplay how dirty the whole system is when he was already nailed before rings kind of self serving to me. Gassnola has been in trouble with the NCAA at least twice before, it's appalling that he's still being paid by an AAU program.

So saying Gassnola, Gatto etc are not credible and then citing Matt Ramker as a voice of reason is kind of silly, he CLEARLY has an agenda here he is one of teh guys that has been breaking rules for years, it's entirely likely if this case goes forward he's going to get dragged into it too. Of course he wants to say Dawkins was exaggerating and bragging.

All that said, so far based on what I've heard I would not be surprised if hes' right and many of the people get off as not guilty, not because they weren't participating in cheating, but because so far I haven't seen enough proof. I think we've seen some evidence Smith Jr got paid, Bowen clearly did. It's starting to look like Ayton did via the family friend, but I haven't seen any evidence yet that directly links Arizona.

We have more than half the Pac 12 allegedly involved in getting help to try and get Bowen. I think ironically UCLA's best defense is why in the world would Adidas bid against themselves? Unless the alleged UCLA inquiry into Bowen happened after they switched to Under Armour and they were the ones involved, why would Adidas offer to help steer him to UCLA and at the same time pay him 100K to go to Louisville? But I don't know the exact timeline on when Bowen and UCLA were involved, it may have been after Under Armour came in, in which case it makes sense.

So I'm at the same place, I know these kids get paid, I highly doubt they chose zero money over lots of money, so presumably they got paid to go to Arizona, USC, Oregon, UCLA etc by someone. but so far it doesn't appear the FBI has proven that. So far it appears they've probably proven Louisville and kansas got players because Adidas paid them, but again that's because it's Adidas people on trial right now.

Those predicting the case is dropped after this trial seems unlikely with trials of assistant coaches coming up, but we'll see.

I don’t know if the guy on Goodman’s podcast was credible or not but he said one thing that stood out. Dawkins and Ayton didn’t have a connection. Gershon and Daniels have said the same thing. Those are two guy’s info I trust. That’s not even taking into account Schlabach’s illogical timeline. Like Miller is even going to discuss on the phone anyway...

 

[Russ Smith]

I don’t know if the guy on Goodman’s podcast was credible or not but he said one thing that stood out. Dawkins and Ayton didn’t have a connection. Gershon and Daniels have said the same thing. Those are two guy’s info I trust. That’s not even taking into account Schlabach’s illogical timeline. Like Miller is even going to discuss on the phone anyway...

I think everyone knows that part. Like I said I've always assumed if there is anything about Dawkins, Miller and Ayton on tape it's likely AFTER Ayton got to Arizona. What still has to be answered is do people honestly believe Adidas paid him 15K to a friend for his mom, offered free housing and a job in Kanas, and he instead chose to attend Arizona for free? I just find it awfully hard to believe he, little and Bowen were all picking arizona for free over schools willing to pay them.

As for the discuss on the phone part, I've never quite gotten why Sean Miller would be that dumb, said so the night the story broke. I have no idea if the Schlabach story is true but the one thing the last 2 days did, is suggest Ayton might not be telling the truth about ever taking money.

Right now the FBI hasn't proven anything bad about Arizona, but again why would anybody expect a case involving 2 Adidas employees and an ADIDAS AAU coach to prove anything against Arizona?

 

[GatorAZ]

I think everyone knows that part. Like I said I've always assumed if there is anything about Dawkins, Miller and Ayton on tape it's likely AFTER Ayton got to Arizona. What still has to be answered is do people honestly believe Adidas paid him 15K to a friend for his mom, offered free housing and a job in Kanas, and he instead chose to attend Arizona for free? I just find it awfully hard to believe he, little and Bowen were all picking arizona for free over schools willing to pay them.

As for the discuss on the phone part, I've never quite gotten why Sean Miller would be that dumb, said so the night the story broke. I have no idea if the Schlabach story is true but the one thing the last 2 days did, is suggest Ayton might not be telling the truth about ever taking money.

Right now the FBI hasn't proven anything bad about Arizona, but again why would anybody expect a case involving 2 Adidas employees and an ADIDAS AAU coach to prove anything against Arizona?

Do they plan on calling Ayton’s friend as a witness? I’m not sure this changes anything on behalf of Ayton’s denial of receiving payments. It’s hard to take any of this seriously when ESPN runs with the headline of Ayton’s dad directly receiving 50k then deleting all content of that report like it never happened hours later.

 

[Russ Smith]

Do they plan on calling Ayton’s friend as a witness? I’m not sure this changes anything on behalf of Ayton’s denial of receiving payments. It’s hard to take any of this seriously when ESPN runs with the headline of Ayton’s dad directly receiving 50k then deleting all content of that report like it never happened hours later.

I don't know if they can call witnesses not on the original list, no idea. Gassnola said today he gave the money to the friend with the understanding it was for Ayton's mom. If that's true, and he actually gave it to the mom, then the family got money, and told the FBI they didn't. Again it doesn't surprise me at all they got money, it does surprise me they'd lie to the FBI, but then Bowen Sr did too, maybe the FBI isn't as scary to them as they would be to me, I don't know.

I didn't see the ESPN story about them paying the dad directly, all I say was headlines that tried to link Arizona to Gatto which made no sense as I have posted here for a week now. Gatto would have been bidding AGAINST nike and arizona, but ESPN and others used that as a headline which seemed pretty silly.

I don't think the FBI really cares if the families got money, they will not pursue that anymore than they did Bazz' dad admitting he got money from a loan etc. They were interested in his mortgage fraud not basketball stuff. With this case they are interested in what they think is a huge case of fraud. I still think they missed the boat, the fraud here is more SEC fraud not NCAA fraud, all these payments were made by shoe companies wtih fraudulent invoices, that's the angle I think they should have gone after.

 

[Russ Smith]

This whole thing is a giant pile of dogsh!t. I think this defense is terrible. Dawkins and Gatto are going to get nailed. They should’ve take plea deals

Not being there we don't know but what I've seen so far I think there's a decent chance Gatto actually gets off relatively easy. So far they have not proven anything either way. they need to prove the schools were defrauded to get Gatto, they haven't proven that. they haven't proven the schools knew either, so far they just proved Bowen Sr and Gassnola are bad guys.

But then what do I know, I'm just like vitale apparently.

 

[TJ]

Omar Thielemans quit the team. Will transfer in December

 

[1Sun]

Omar Thielemans quit the team. Will transfer in December

What happened? This was already a position at which we were paper thin.

 

[TJ]

What happened? This was already a position at which we were paper thin.

Struggled in practice and wasn’t going to get any minutes this season. On the bench, he was going to be behind Doutrive and Randolph. His options were to red shirt or quit.

 

[1Sun]

Struggled in practice and wasn’t going to get any minutes this season. On the bench, he was going to be behind Doutrive and Randolph. His options were to red shirt or quit.

Why behind Randolph and Doutrive? We needed him to back up Ryan Luther at power forward this year. There is nobody else on the roster who can play the position, except Ira Lee in spot minutes (though we need Lee as a back up center).

With Thielemans gone, who plays the minutes at power forward this year, and with no power forward recruit coming in, who plays them next year?

 

[GatorAZ]

Akot will play some at the 4. Lee will get some at the 5. Not ideal but what’s that happens when you lose 5 starters. Jeter will be the most important player on the team.

 

[1Sun]

Akot will play some at the 4. Lee will get some at the 5. Not ideal but what’s that happens when you lose 5 starters. Jeter will be the most important player on the team.

Akot is 15 pounds lighter than Thielemans at the same height. We really needed Thielemans at the 4.