lol - I heard that rumor - from a KU fan no doubt, but didn't think it was more than hearsay. So the mom gets $90 grand cash getting banged by the Adidas money runner ?#? This would make some juicy soap opra!
Pat Forde on Kansas' hoops recruiting (FBI-related)
- Thread starter I-stateTheTruth
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lol - I heard that rumor - from a KU fan no doubt, but didn't think it was more than hearsay. So the mom gets $90 grand cash getting banged by the Adidas money runner ?#? This would make some juicy soap opra!
Especially considering that Billy Preston's mom is gay.
I am sure glad that KU didn't play Preston last year. Disappointing to hear that KU compliance did not fully vet the ownership of that car; my guess is that they put in new procedures now add those checks into their sign-offs on player cars.
We'll see if anything comes of the alleged $2,500 that DeSousa's family is claimed to have actually received. My guess is that if the NCAA gets around to doing something about this prior to the season starting in 3 weeks (highly unlikely) and can actually prove that his guardian took that money then DeSousa will sit out whatever number of games that amount is charted to on the penalty chart. Glad KU has 5 big men this year; looks like McDonald's All American David McCormack will get to see some floor time after all.
Yahoo's Dan Wetzel has a good summary of the Gassnola testimony so far. Here's the headline:
Fake affairs, Charger-driving great grandmas, $300K expense accounts: Inside a routine day at hoops trial
Here's the link: https://www.yahoo.com/sports/fake-a...inside-routine-day-hoops-trial-012320618.html
Fake affairs, Charger-driving great grandmas, $300K expense accounts: Inside a routine day at hoops trial
Here's the link: https://www.yahoo.com/sports/fake-a...inside-routine-day-hoops-trial-012320618.html
Has any one watched Student Athlete, the documentary that Lebron James produced? I am about half way through it but they show the AAU side of things with basketball and the shoe companies and the have a Nike AAU guy with his voiced disguised talking about making payments to players and saying that the shoe companies have a ton of say in what is going on with the kids from what HS they go to, what college they go to and to what agent and financial advisors they go to.
The thing I keep coming back to is some of these guys we are talking about are not top 10 recruits. Bowen was in the 15-20 range. De Sousa was in the 30 range. Preston was anywhere from 10-20. Ayton was the only real elite player to come up.
So if they are doing these types of things for players in the 15-30 rankings, what does a top 10 guy get?
I am guessing well that there are smaller payments and favors being done for guys lower than that as well. It was interesting because the Nike guy on the documentary says it pays off more for them to get these high school kids in their gear than an NBA bench guy because of all the hype around recruiting all the players have all the highlight tapes online and kids watch the crap out of the highlight videos.
Nike has 93% of the market share of basketball shoe sales so I would assume that their involvement in these types of activities is similarly scaled.
It would be foolish to think that any Top 50 recruit who ended up at a Nike school did so without any Nike money flowing into their pocket. Meh, good for them.
It clear from the FBI trial that most of the big name programs aren't going to be touched. Plausible deniability is a skill learned long ago by guys like Frank Martin, Bill Self, and Roy Williams.
Self never talked money with the FBI's canary, P.J. Gassnowla, according to his testimony, but rather only about his player contacts. Since he was an AAU coach, it was logical and plausible to say those coach/AAU contacts were fair game, even though everyone knew with a wink and a smile what Gassnowla was doing under the table.
Crooked to the core but smart about it as well. Plausible deniability reigns over law, logic, and ethics as well.
Self never talked money with the FBI's canary, P.J. Gassnowla, according to his testimony, but rather only about his player contacts. Since he was an AAU coach, it was logical and plausible to say those coach/AAU contacts were fair game, even though everyone knew with a wink and a smile what Gassnowla was doing under the table.
Crooked to the core but smart about it as well. Plausible deniability reigns over law, logic, and ethics as well.
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The old, "We're doing it so you must be doing it too" excuse.
So without digging much into this is Preston going to be the fall guy for KU now that he's gone and never played?
There's no need for a 'fall guy.' Ku is claiming the high ground in this case. DeSousa is their player at risk presently.
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Bill Self's notes:
-Stupid car wreck in expensive car!
-Hire limo driver's to transport our players?
-Speak with Gassnowla
-Phrase thusly-"We have a high class basketball team and need high class transportation needs for the players on this team. There is a potential liability in them driving their great grandmother's vehicles. We are hoping Adidas can help implement a safety program here called
Lifts
In
Moments
Organization
For the safety of our student athletes.
I believe Ku fans are taking a sigh of relief today that Bill Self was savvy enough yesterday [sic] to not play Preston nor talk money with Gassnowla. Self knew full well what Gassnowla was doing, bringing top-tier athletes to Adidas schools, and that he was doing it by literally buying their favor. Self didn't have to discuss the dirty money part of these deals as Gassnowla had shown already his abilities to acquire talent for Ku and other Adidas institutions. Plus, Ku had this bottomless pit of Adidas money flowing through its athletics program funding Self's bloated contract and the program generally. Preston and DeSousa were but the latest in a long list on the scoundrel's pathway into AFH for Late Night.
http://www2.ljworld.com/sports/ku-m...S81vwNTvUwyFPsDz2B3Z-wMyiIpKbjT-c2ZpyxJeLvF1A
http://www2.ljworld.com/sports/ku-m...S81vwNTvUwyFPsDz2B3Z-wMyiIpKbjT-c2ZpyxJeLvF1A
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No, it's the "do the math" conversation. Let's step back a sec and remember why this entire thing is out in the open. We're hearing this all about Adidas only because some moron financial advisor Marty Blazer got busted by the SEC for siphoning off a bunch of money from his clients, many of whom were professional athletes, so he could finance some below B-rate movies named "Mafia the Movie" and "Sibling". I mean, this is how ridiculous this whole thing is. All this going on and it's only out from under the rock due to sheer dumb luck and stupidity by some glorified dime-store hustler.
Nike is this stuff x1000. You don't get a 93% market share in as huge a business as the multi-billion dollar world of basketball shoes sales by just having a cooler product. They're friggin' leather shoes with rubber soles; not enough quality difference between any of them for one to have a 93% market share. The Nike network is well funded, well manned, deeply entrenched and humming along. Kansas doesn't need an excuse for understanding how to function at a very high level within the ever changing laws of the sport.
Precedent has been set as to what is acceptable. From the White House, to the Supreme Court to NCAA sports programs, money and power run it all. It stinks that this is the current reality but there it is. Find things you love within the framework of this reality and enjoy your time on this earth.
Heck, maybe this Blazer guy and this Gassnola guy will get together and write a script for this B-Movie knockoff and strike it rich. Ah, the American Dream; making money off celebrating your foolishness. Maybe they'll ascend to the pinnacle of American society and get a reality series...
Well at least you finally dropped the charade that KU was clean in all this. Nice to see you openly embrace the cheating Tuco.
I had a conversation with a KU fan today who went from "KU didn't do anything wrong" to "everybody is doing it so it's OK" and back again several times during the conversation. No clue that he was contradicting himself within the conversation. KU fans need to get their defense straight, did KU do nothing wrong or are they just cheating because everyone is? Can't be both.
The first two weeks of the three-week college basketball corruption trial have all but confirmed what many long suspected: top college basketball recruits have been paid thousands of dollars in secret transactions. These payments, some of which were made to recruits’ family members, were structured as inducements to attend particular colleges sponsored by Adidas. The three defendants in the trial—Adidas director of global marketing James Gatto, Adidas consultant basketball organizer Merl Code and client recruiter (a.k.a. runner) Christian Dawkins—are all accused of masterminding various conspiracies to funnel payments to recruits or their families. The fate of these three men will be determined by 12 jurors who have been watching federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York and defense attorneys debate the merits of the case before the presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, in Manhattan’s Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse.
If this trial was about proving the existence of corruption in “big time” college basketball, the government would have already proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. A number of witnesses have detailed the extent and pervasiveness of such corruption.
https://www.si.com/college-basketba...n-bribery-trial-brian-bowen-christian-dawkins
If this trial was about proving the existence of corruption in “big time” college basketball, the government would have already proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. A number of witnesses have detailed the extent and pervasiveness of such corruption.
https://www.si.com/college-basketba...n-bribery-trial-brian-bowen-christian-dawkins
