And to think it was only months ago that Slick Rick was lamenting his lost faith in the NCAAs over a 5-game suspension…
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Gone
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A small number of recruits? That remains to be seen and seems very unlikely. The coaches charged so far aren’t mostly from recruiting powerhouses. A lot of the complaints about Beilein’s recruiting could be reexamined. Some were valid, as reflected by his changing his approach to certain aspects. Others were based on misinformation and wrongheaded assumptions.
I agree, but according to some on here absolutely none of the complaints about JB’s recruiting are valid, which is ridiculous and its a point even JB would not agree with. That is the point I was making.
Who on here said that there were zero legitimate complaints?
Well, recruiting went downhill a little when we started chasing five star kids and missed - Booker, Kennard, Bates-Diop, Leaf, Thornton, Battle, Brunson. etc.
Right?
Can we all agree that the 2012 and 2013 classes were pretty good? Yes, Irvin wasn’t the five star we hoped, and Donnal wasn’t great, but on the whole those two classes were strong and were the backbone of our Elite Eight run in 2014.
And plainly the guys we landed before that - like Hardaway, Burke, and even Jordan Morgan - were strong recruits. Right? We did, after all, win a Big Ten title in 2012, make the title game in 2013, and make the Elite Eight in 2014.
So, we went sideways when, trying to capitalize on our success, we chased the big fish but we weren’t fishing with the right bait.
I guess maybe we fault Beilein for being naive? I don’t know.
And even among those “down” classes, we landed a five star kid everyone thought would be good (Chatman), a first round draft pick (Wilson), and a very good big man (Wagner).
I’m not saying JB is perfect by any means. But I am saying he’s damn good. And I’ll also say he’s the best clean Michigan coach we’ve ever had.
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Are we seriously going down this rabbit hole again guys? Seems like the usual suspects as well. Let’s cool our jets.
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ESPNU has been having a pretty good round table on this matter. Even the famous Sonny Vaccaro came on to discuss it.
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I wonder if they’ll get World Wide Wes for anything this time…
Doubtful, as he’s been investigated over and over again, but we shall see. If people start taking plea bargains then nobody is safe.
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And now starts the Nike portion of the proceedings.
From various Twitter accounts:
Sources: Employees of Nike’s EYBL grassroots division, along with documents, have been subpoenaed by FBI in furtherance of investigation
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For those that are fully read up on this, any chance any of these kids or their families end up in jail? That would be the biggest deterrent to kids that are presented the $ option in the future IMO.
That shouldn’t happen unless it’s for tax evasion on the money they’ve received. The only illegal thing from what I understood from the press conference yesterday was that coaches were taking money to funnel players to specific agents or shoe companies.
The will probably have IRS issues, but that’s a civil matter afaik. The basis of the charges is that the assistant coaches in question are employees of federally funded institutions who have accepted bribes in excess of 10k. The recruits and their families don’t fall into that bucket.
No, the kids are not going to end up in jail. And they shouldn’t.
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they have not charged the players and their families even clearly they know who they are and what they did, so at least not the priority of the prosecutors.
What we learned yesterday is only a tip of a giant iceberg. I have no doubt that many current players will be exposed once some defendant enter into plea bargains and many will loss their NCAA eligibility. Next year’s NBA draft could be the deepest in history.
Technically, if they have audio/video of a kid or his parent(s) asking for $, they could charge him/her with the same solicitation of a bride charge that was included among the various charges against the assistant coaches. If they only have a coach saying the player/family wants $, my understanding is most courts would throw that out as hearsay.
But I agree with Dylan, it seems unlikely that a player/family member will be charged in this dragnet ---- outside of a potential/probable tax review from the IRS.
You can go to prison for tax evasion, but so far there’s no indication that the feds are interested in the athletes. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if some family members or “advisors” take immunity agreements in exchange for testimony. As for the statute that the coaches are charged under, I’m not sure that prospective student-athletes would be considered “agents” of the universities.
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Wouldn’t surprise me if part of this is the FBI leaning on parents to get them to spill. I’m guessing someones mom would flip if it came down to taking down some coach vs the threat of jail for family.
But not by the FBI
this is a fun read…
for extra fun: ctrl+f; type “beilein”; hit enter
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