AP Top 25
@AP_Top25
Louisville meets with NCAA to appeal basketball sanctions (link: http://apne.ws/L1dxiur) apne.ws/L1dxiur
@AP_Top25
Louisville meets with NCAA to appeal basketball sanctions (link: http://apne.ws/L1dxiur) apne.ws/L1dxiur
Nathan FennoVerified account@nathanfenno
Attorneys for three defendants in the college basketball bribery case -- Christian Dawkins, Merl Code and Jim Gatto -- have filed a motion to dismiss the government's indictment against them. The motion covers one of the three pending cases in the matter.
Nathan FennoVerified account@nathanfenno 23m23 minutes ago
The motion says payments the defendants allegedly made to steer three high school players to Louisville and Miami weren't illegal: "It is not against the law to offer a financial incentive to a family ... to send their son or daughter to a particular college."
Nathan FennoVerified account@nathanfenno 21m21 minutes ago
The three defendants didn't defraud or injure the universities, the motion said, because they sought to help, not harm the schools by directing talented players to them.
Nathan FennoVerified account@nathanfenno 17m17 minutes ago
The motion accuses of the government of attempting to criminalize NCAA rules violations and notes universities have committed "thousands of violations" over the decades "which often involved conduct identical to -- or far worse than -- Defendants' here."
Adding to the story about lawyers asking charges be dropped against 3 men. The claim is the FBI turned over the tapes of phone calls to the lawyers, they were recording 5 phone numbers over a total of 330 days and have intercepted and recorded over 4000 calls!
The assumption is those phone numbers included Dawkins and Sood but you really wonder who the other 3 were? Was it Gatto and the Adidas people, was it the coaches(Book, Bland etc).
The article also again points out that Arizona is the ONLY school involved in the FBI scandal that had specific players mentioned(but not identified) that has not suspended any players.
LA Times just said today they have a source claiming Taeshon Cherry, who just dropped his verbal to USC, was in fact player #8 named in the FBI scandal that committed to USC. His family denies it and insists they decommitted because USC backed off him out of fear since Tony Bland had recruited him. THey didn't mention that he also bailed on signing his NLI to USC, 3 days before he was scheduled to sign it.
This is such a fascinating story because there's so many involved and so many possible outcomes but the Arizona angle is by far the most interesting. Every single school who had reason to believe a player on their roster was involved, suspended the player, except for Arizona, who has 3. They either know something about their case that none of the other schools know in theirs, or they're rolling the dice.
Kyle Bonagura
@BonaguraESPN
USC announced sophomore guard De'Anthony Melton will be held out the rest of the season after an internal investigation determined a family friend received an extra benefit. Melton will have the option to remain at USC on scholarship and could... (link: http://www.espn.com/espn/now?nowId=21-40015256-4) espn.com/espn/now?nowId…
This story is now baffling to me. Last night in the Colorado/ Arizona game PJC slammed into the Colorado PG going for a steal, the ref didn't call it, and then after a missed shot, Tad Boyle screamed at the ref and got a T. THe ARizona fans started chanting and holding up signs blasting Boyle, and then to my astonishment Casey Jacobsen on tv made a comment about Boyle's comments after they beat ARizona the first game being unfortunate and "he's normally a very classy guy if you know him".
I was literally floored. Why in the hell is it not classy to ask a direct question about a program caught up, red handed, in an FBI scandal? Why is it ok for Sean Miller to keep refusing to even comment on questions about it but somehow Boyle is "not classy" answer the question honestly?
THe system is corrupt and kids get money, we all know that, but payments DIRECTLY from coaches are not normal. What Book and Bland and the other coaches did is completely outside the norm and that's why they got caught. For Casey Jacobsen to blast, on air, a coach for being honest about that is ridiculous IMO and it's part of the problem. This don't snitch mentality is stupid, everyone breaks rules but when you get caught doing it red handed by the Feds, you don't deserve any sympathy.
I think what Casey was trying to say is look players get paid and you're not supposed to talk about it.
I don't like Boyle but it had nothing to do with what he says. I wonder if the NCAA makes a quicker decision now that there's a lot crazy stuff coming out of other programs that they need to get to.
https://sports.yahoo.com/sources-co...hes-top-programs-lottery-picks-224417174.html
What would happen if the information under protective order were to be released before the NCAA selection show on March 11?
A source who has been briefed on the case laughed: “You might see Tennessee-Chattanooga as a No. 2 seed.”
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Jeff Eisenberg
@JeffEisenberg
Rick Pitino urges Louisville to take the NCAA to court over taking the 2013 national title banner down.
John Wall puts this into perfect perspective on how the players see this stuff. Wall was asked about and said he thinks it's naive to assume UK is going to get hit harder because they have had so many lottery picks saying put it this way if you were about to get rich in the NBA in a few months would you risk all that for a small payment now? The implication being the high lottery picks don't get paid it's the ones below, like Bowen, who get paid.
I would note this is the same John Wall who started his college career at UK SUSPENDED by the NCAA for taking money from his AAU coach! The way it was quoted it would appear John Wall either didn't think anybody else would remember, or didn't remember himself that HE took money and got suspended over it. That's the mentality of the players here everyone is doing it, we ought to be getting paid, so we're taking the money. I don't necessarily fault them for it mind you, but trying to defend it now by suggesting the high lottery kids aren't getting paid is going to be tough to sell, especially when we know for a fact he took money himself.
The NCAA will do nothing to Kentucky.Kentucky has one of the most rabid (crazy,insane) fans anywhere and they will follow UK to hell and to watch the games.That means dollars into the register and if anything about the NCAA is consistent (besides its lack of intelligence,integrity ,and failure to enforce the rules equally and fairly.Some schools are Teflon coated (UK,Duke,Alabama,etc while others get unfairly hammered.The NCAA is simply a money ***** run by a bunch of greedy people making money off the work of others .