Miller once again does it again!

[GatorAZ]

If I were a UA or USC fan I'd be nervous right now. With the NCAA allowing UNC to walk away free and clear, the pressure on the NCAA to hammer someone is going to be huge.

Sean's going to be doing a lot of "I'll stand by my statement" interviews for awhile now

The only thing that would lessen the punishment are more teams getting implicated so they're "lumped in" rather than "singled out". Given the amount of time the NCAA takes to investigate it will probably a while. The punishment is always waiting for the punishment b/c the cloud doesn't go away and your program is drug thru the mud by everyone. Negative recruiting is the norm.

 

[Russ Smith]

The only thing that would lessen the punishment are more teams getting implicated so they're "lumped in" rather than "singled out". Given the amount of time the NCAA takes to investigate it will probably a while. The punishment is always waiting for the punishment b/c the cloud doesn't go away and your program is drug thru the mud by everyone. Negative recruiting is the norm.

At least with UA you can legitimately show that they've been negatively impacted by this already, their 2018 recruiting class has clearly been harmed. Roy Williams complained the UNC stuff hurt their recruiting but it's pretty difficult to argue it actually did given their results.

UNC handled this Bill Clintonesquely IMO, they argued the legal minutiae was more important than the intent of the rules and in the end, they won.

 

[TJ]

At least with UA you can legitimately show that they've been negatively impacted by this already, their 2018 recruiting class has clearly been harmed. Roy Williams complained the UNC stuff hurt their recruiting but it's pretty difficult to argue it actually did given their results.

UNC handled this Bill Clintonesquely IMO, they argued the legal minutiae was more important than the intent of the rules and in the end, they won.

The best thing that could happen for Arizona is for the feds to prove that Book went rogue and that all other allegations either didn't happen or weren't proven to have existed beyond a reasonable doubt. Then, the school can come back to the NCAA with all of the information that the FBI gathered from their investigation subpoenas, etc, and exclaim that they're clean.

 

[GatorAZ]

Oh UofA grabs low character transfers, they just don't get talented ones (Peters).

I will say this, unlike Miller, I could never imagine Lute paying his players. I mean they were such starving students they had to break into vending machines to even eat.

Some ppl probably took Lute for granted. The program was consistently great except for some quick tourney exits in the early-90's. Luckily there was internet or social media back then.

Not sure how everything got so dysfunctional at the end (besides the stroke) but it could've been handled better. I mean four coaches in four years...

 

[Russ Smith]

J'Raan Brooks just decommitted from USC citing the FBI story. Said he's still considering USC, but reopened his recruitment.

His family has publicly insisted he wasn't the rising freshman named in the FBI report. You wonder if Cherry and Porter will stay committed too.

 

[Russ Smith]

Interesting angle with Nassir Little that if true might be good news for Arizona.

A Miami paper obtained a copy of a sworn affadavit Little and his dad signed under oath on 10/13. In it both swear they were not bribed, had no knowledge of any money offers or anything beyond discussing an athletic scholarship, and had no knowledge of any financial pay to play discussions with anybody including with any of the parties named in the FBI allegations.

Note, this is under oath, it means if Little and the dad are lying, they perjured themselves so it wasn't something they signed without serious consideration.

The part of it that troubles me is the last part of the statement, Little says he committed to UNC which is where he always intended to attend. UNC didn't offer him until June, the bidding war stuff is alleged to have happened in July and August at which time Little went from Miami and UA to Miami lean, to widely considered a "silent commit" to ARizona. And of course after the FBI story broke, Little tweeted he was reopening his recruitment, having never actually committed publicly, and then deleted the tweet which is when Givony made that story public and tweeted that it appeared Little was Player 12.

So basically now Miami is saying they expect to be fully cleared in this story, Arizona is apparently saying any such discussions of payment were just made up by the agent Dawkins, and the Adidas guys Code and Gatto. The FBI says they intercepted(wire taps) calls between Code and Dawkins where they discussed this at length including did it have to be in one lump sum because if Arizona was willing to pay 150K all once(presumably Nike not actually Arizona) then "that's where he's going" indicating Miami and Adidas would only do 150K if it was not a lump sum payment. So the FBI has this entire thing on tape, but it doesn't say it has Little or his dad on tape, just Code and Dawkins talking about it and talking about the Miami coach knowing the whole thing, that Gatto is asking Code to get it done, and that Augustine the AAU guy for Little is asking if Gatto can make it so the kid goes to Miami because "Miami really wants the kid."

To me the fact that Little has gone under oath and denied any knowledge of any of this is either pretty significant, or pretty stupid. he's either telling the truth or gambling that the FBi doesn't have any proof on tape that he knew?

 

[GatorAZ]

Little was definitely coming here until the FBI implicated everyone. Whether he was offered money or not the conversion on tape had no connection to Book. I'm surprised there's nothing yet regarding Quinerly considering his "alleged" payments came from an actual coach.

 

[Russ Smith]

Little was definitely coming here until the FBI implicated everyone. Whether he was offered money or not the conversion on tape had no connection to Book. I'm surprised there's nothing yet regarding Quinerly considering his "alleged" payments came from an actual coach.

Yeah the taped part doesn't mention Book at all, it says that the Miami coach, coach 3, who hasn't been identified yet, was aware of what had to be done(payment) and was on board with it. Then it said that Adidas was probably willing to match the 150K coming from school 4's shoe company(Arizona and Nike) but only if it wasn't a lump sum, if they had to pay it all at once "the kid is going to them" because Adidas wouldn't give up all the money at once.

Dawkins then told Code if they waited, it might cost them 200K to get the player eventually. So the bulk of the call and discussion is about Miami, with a claim that Arizona has offered 150K. What I've read elsewhere is that ARizona is claiming the alleged offer by Nike is completely fabricated by the agent and the FBI agent undercover goaded Dawkins into making that claim to get Adidas to agree to match is so the FBI could get more evidence against Adidas. That there was no actual offer from Nike for Arizona, it was made up.

It is interesting to me that Little is now under oath on this, he has a lawyer so he has to know the significance of doing it under oath.

 

[GatorAZ]

If shoe companies are in bidding wars up to 150k for guys like Little and Bowen then players like Ayton, Bagley, Ball and Jackson are worth 500k.

Meanwhile it looks like Brandon Williams hasn't lost any explosiveness since returning from injury. Hopefully he stays committed.

 

[TJ]

If shoe companies are in bidding wars up to 150k for guys like Little and Bowen then players like Ayton, Bagley, Ball and Jackson are worth 500k.

Meanwhile it looks like Brandon Williams hasn't lost any explosiveness since returning from injury. Hopefully he stays committed.

Reading the tea leaves, I think Williams and O'Neal stay committed. I'm more confident about JQ these days because who's going to take him if he decommitts? This, of course, is assuming Book never paid him or his family. If Miller takes JQ's NLI, that would be an indicator that Miller thinks things are clean with him.

The rest of the class is going to have to be JuCo and grad transfers unless Miller can convince some high ranking guys to hold off on signing NLIs.

 

[GatorAZ]

Reading the tea leaves, I think Williams and O'Neal stay committed. I'm more confident about JQ these days because who's going to take him if he decommitts? This, of course, is assuming Book never paid him or his family. If Miller takes JQ's NLI, that would be an indicator that Miller thinks things are clean with him.

The rest of the class is going to have to be JuCo and grad transfers unless Miller can convince some high ranking guys to hold off on signing NLIs.

I think there's too much smoke surrounding JQ for him to skate past the NCAA. It might be one of those things where they honor his commitment and he's allowed to practice and attend school but not play in games. Kind of like the Enes Kanter situation with different circumstances.

As long as there's no unexpected OAD's besides Ayton that would still be a really good team assuming Williams and O'Neal stay on. Definitely better than 3-4 teams Miller has had here. One year they finished 3rd in the P12 with Ryan Anderson as the best player.

 

[Russ Smith]

If shoe companies are in bidding wars up to 150k for guys like Little and Bowen then players like Ayton, Bagley, Ball and Jackson are worth 500k.

Meanwhile it looks like Brandon Williams hasn't lost any explosiveness since returning from injury. Hopefully he stays committed.

Beasley, about 10 years ago now, reportedly got well over 100K through an agent,paid to his mom. It didn't come out until he fired his agent and signed with a new one after getting drafted. After years of fighting the agent sued Beasley for breach of contract and Beasley then alleged the agent, and Curtis Malone his AAU coach, had conspired to get him to sign with the agent and funneled him to Kansas State. Malone and the agent both said Beasley made it up to help him in the lawsuit, but since then both Malone and the agent were caught up in a scandal involving taking money to steer players so it appears Beasley was telling the truth.

So 10 years later yeah you have to think people on that level get more.

What I found surprising is in the story about Little, it says that Gatto the Adidas rep made 139K in annual salary, I have to admit I assumed those guys made MUCH more money than that? That living in oregon is great money but not nearly as much as I expected. It's rumored Bagley's dad got 6 figures just to coach Bagley's AAU team, so nearly as much as Gatto did.

 

[GatorAZ]

Beasley, about 10 years ago now, reportedly got well over 100K through an agent,paid to his mom. It didn't come out until he fired his agent and signed with a new one after getting drafted. After years of fighting the agent sued Beasley for breach of contract and Beasley then alleged the agent, and Curtis Malone his AAU coach, had conspired to get him to sign with the agent and funneled him to Kansas State. Malone and the agent both said Beasley made it up to help him in the lawsuit, but since then both Malone and the agent were caught up in a scandal involving taking money to steer players so it appears Beasley was telling the truth.

So 10 years later yeah you have to think people on that level get more.

What I found surprising is in the story about Little, it says that Gatto the Adidas rep made 139K in annual salary, I have to admit I assumed those guys made MUCH more money than that? That living in oregon is great money but not nearly as much as I expected. It's rumored Bagley's dad got 6 figures just to coach Bagley's AAU team, so nearly as much as Gatto did.

That's less than the assistant coaches they're bribing make. Book was around 250k and I think Pasternak was over 300k. It's just mind-boggling that Book is associating with sleazballs at his salary and stature. If the thing was true with Book and PGU then Miller should've cut bait with him. Selling info to a shady online character while making a qtr million dollars per year is a clear indicator of terrible judgement.

 

[GatorAZ]

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[Lefty]

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https://www.azdesertswarm.com/recru...orth-carolina-kentucky-kansas-2018-recruiting

 

[TJ]

Herro once said that Arizona was one of his dream schools. Gotta go for it, even w/ potential sanctions looming. We’re in need of some good news on the recruiting front.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[gmabel830]

Zona 5 in the preseason coaches poll... duke preseason #1

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[Russ Smith]

Hearing Terrance Ferguson may wind up with his name in the expanded FBI investigation. Apparently Kobie Baker the guy who resigned from Alabama after allegedly taking money to steer Collin Sexton, may have done the same thing with an agent and Ferguson who originally committed to Alabama. Not clear if his involvement was just Alabama related or not since he ultimately wound up committed to Arizona.

 

[GatorAZ]

Quinerly has decommitted. It will be interesting to see how his path to the NBA goes. He's probably good enough to go overseas for a year.

 

[TJ]

At least we know Barcello won’t transfer


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[Russ Smith]

KVOA did an update on the FBI story yesterday that was largely nothing new. They did have a quote from Pasternack saying he was surprised to hear what went on but didn't comment on him having been involved.

The one thing I "think" is new is that they have a quote from Book talking to the agent Dawkins, with the undercover FBI guy present. In it, Book says that now that he's got this deal with them, he will exclusively direct players to Dawkins, rather than directing them to several different agents. The context isn't there but the bad way to take that is Book admitted on tape that he's been directing Arizona players to agents for awhile, BEFORE this Dawkins deal came about.

The good way to take it is he means once a kid leaves UA and asks him for advice, I would give them a few names but now I won't, I'll just advise Dawkins to be their guy. Again the context is important and missing but given what they were talking about, which it says is them paying Book 5K a month to steer players you can easily take that to mean Book had been doing this well before Dawkins. and the story said that it wasn't clear whether Book was keeping all this money, or using some of it to influence the kids. 5K a month is significantly different from what I took from the original FBI release, it's significantly easier to see why Book took this risk when the payoff is 60K a year.

 

[GatorAZ]

KVOA did an update on the FBI story yesterday that was largely nothing new. They did have a quote from Pasternack saying he was surprised to hear what went on but didn't comment on him having been involved.

The one thing I "think" is new is that they have a quote from Book talking to the agent Dawkins, with the undercover FBI guy present. In it, Book says that now that he's got this deal with them, he will exclusively direct players to Dawkins, rather than directing them to several different agents. The context isn't there but the bad way to take that is Book admitted on tape that he's been directing Arizona players to agents for awhile, BEFORE this Dawkins deal came about.

The good way to take it is he means once a kid leaves UA and asks him for advice, I would give them a few names but now I won't, I'll just advise Dawkins to be their guy. Again the context is important and missing but given what they were talking about, which it says is them paying Book 5K a month to steer players you can easily take that to mean Book had been doing this well before Dawkins. and the story said that it wasn't clear whether Book was keeping all this money, or using some of it to influence the kids. 5K a month is significantly different from what I took from the original FBI release, it's significantly easier to see why Book took this risk when the payoff is 60K a year.

Pasternack being there looks bad but they can't do anything if he didn't accept money. Arizona and Pasternack are both lucky he left when he did. Washington firing Romar was pretty huge as well. Otherwise you'd be down two assistants while under investigation. Without him i think Williams and Shareef would be gone by now. So as bad as things look it could be a lot worse (for now).

I was unrealistic to think Quinerly would still play here but it's good he's gone. With that connection severed it might be one less thing the NCAA looks into. Of the people mentioned; Book, Pasternack, Quinerly and Little have no more ties to Arizona going forward. According to that article Book said he "can funnel" Player 6 and 7 to Dawkins possibly meaning they hadn't been paid yet. It also says another player had taken $15,000 but I'm not sure if that's Quinerly or a past/present player.

 

[Russ Smith]

Pasternack being there looks bad but they can't do anything if he didn't accept money. Arizona and Pasternack are both lucky he left when he did. Washington firing Romar was pretty huge as well. Otherwise you'd be down two assistants while under investigation. Without him i think Williams and Shareef would be gone by now. So as bad as things look it could be a lot worse (for now).

I was unrealistic to think Quinerly would still play here but it's good he's gone. With that connection severed it might be one less thing the NCAA looks into. Of the people mentioned; Book, Pasternack, Quinerly and Little have no more ties to Arizona going forward. According to that article Book said he "can funnel" Player 6 and 7 to Dawkins possibly meaning they hadn't been paid yet. It also says another player had taken $15,000 but I'm not sure if that's Quinerly or a past/present player.

It all depends on how the NCAA decides to look at it. The big concern for ARizona is the rule change a few years ago allowing the NCAA to hold the head coach responsible for violations committed by assistants unless he can prove that he fostered an atmosphere of compliance and the coach just went rogue. My guess is the more stuff the NCAA finds out that Book was doing, the harder it is to say there was a compliant atmosphere.

Pasternack not actually taking money might be good or it may not matter since they said he clearly told them he was interested in doing so as soon as the season was over. Just depends how aggressively the NCAA pursues this given they have no idea how many other schools are going to be involved.

If I were a UA fan that would be my hope, that the NCAA doesn't want to drop the hammer on the schools involved now because if/when more get caught up, then they have precedent to have to drop the hammer on all of them.

I think Quinerly decommiting guarantees Brandon Williams sticks to UA, he has no competition beyond Barcello now so logically he'll stay committed.

 

[GatorAZ]

Shaq and Shareef were at Red & Blue and they look solid to UA. A UK guy said Cal won't offer him as long as he's committed. My guess is he's pretty tight with Miller and wouldn't go there. After all we can thank Cal for Miller coming here in the first place.

With Quinerly out the picture it increases the chances of Williams staying plus USC is about to get a commit so maybe they can add another lower-rated guy in the upcoming months. The image of the program will be much better when they're killing teams this year.

 

[TJ]

Shaq and Shareef were at Red & Blue and they look solid to UA. A UK guy said Cal won't offer him as long as he's committed. My guess is he's pretty tight with Miller and wouldn't go there. After all we can thank Cal for Miller coming here in the first place.

With Quinerly out the picture it increases the chances of Williams staying plus USC is about to get a commit so maybe they can add another lower-rated guy in the upcoming months. The image of the program will be much better when they're killing teams this year.

Hard to say. I think it's universally known that UofA is going to annihilate the PAC-12 and make a tourney run, hopefully to the Natty. I think the image will only get better if it is proven that Book went rogue and nothing more happened, or there is a wave of other top-tier teams that get implicated in the investigation, which levels the playing field for us. The problem is the more I think about it, the more I think this FBI case is going to drag on for a long time, maybe even a couple of years. The FBI has already told the NCAA to hold off on any investigation until it has finished with its case. In a sense, we're looking at potentially five years before a punishment is levied, if one is at all.

UofA should follow the UNC model for recruiting. UNC has always recruited fairly well, but they rarely ever pull multiple 5* kids in one class, and some recent classes didn't even have one. Get some kids who will stay at least 2-3 years, coach them up, find some good grad transfers to fill in the gaps, and hope that they develop rapidly.

Unlike other schools caught in this mishegas, UofA is a basketball brand name, so Miller should still be able to sell the program to high 4* guys. Miller may have to wait on pulling in multiple 5* kids for a little while, but this may be a blessing in disguise as it will force Miller to coach his players up more.