We Have New Pay For Play Accusations In The College Basketball Investigation

This is technically day 1 of the trial involving the FBI investigation into college basketball. As I mentioned before this case is Jim Gatto – a former Adidas executive. Now, before we get into the stuff listed above, let it be known that his attorneys are arguing that no law was broken just NCAA rules.

That’s the problem here. Instead of trying to figure out whether or not the NCAA is the legal case here is the problem. Shouldn’t we be looking into whether or not capping what these guys can make (scholarship + stipend) is actually legal instead of players getting paid to go somewhere? I’ve said it multiple times. I’m not campaigning that schools should have to pay the players. Their pay should be the scholarship. But, the pay should come from the free market. If an establishment wants to pay a player $10,000 for an appearance, let them do it. For those arguing it will skew recruiting, isn’t recruiting already skewed in the favor of the bluebloods? Would this really change that? Most likely not.

Now, onto the accusations here. The first one is the fact that Oregon offered to pay an astronomical amount for Brian Bowen. That’s a new allegation that we haven’t heard of yet and could land Oregon in trouble with the NCAA – along with these other programs. Remember, the new NCAA rule states that the NCAA can use outside information like this in order to place punishments.

The other allegations were rumored throughout the start of the investigation when you were able to pinpoint players who were listed based on dates. This is now out in the open and while these players aren’t going to get in trouble with the law – it will be whether or not the NCAA comes down on these guys. Nassir Little is currently enrolled at UNC. Will we see any sort of time missed for him due to eligibility questions? Personally, I wouldn’t sit him. Force the NCAA to make their own ruling. Same with De Sousa at Kansas.

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This is just day 1 though. Expect a lot more of this to come out, but again, the question is what’s going on here? Can’t we look at other things like I mentioned before? This is going to be just such a long process.