Kansas refers to itself as the victim of the FBI investigation

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RegentCoverup
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https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/sam-mellinger/article209330689.html

BY SAM MELLINGER
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April 19, 2018 12:21 PM

The FBI gave Kansas an opening to call itself a victim in a budding basketball scandal, and while that's technically true in a narrow legal sense, it takes on a broader meaning when used by the school as PR cover. It becomes a laughable lie, ugly or worse in one sense and transparently empty in another.
The school's communications department should have known better. Using that word is counterproductive to the presumed intention, pulling the school's reputation closer to the fire instead of away from it. But more to the point here, the word choice makes it more difficult to have an honest conversation about the complicated black market that is college basketball and KU's place in it.
A blueblood program is between a Final Four run and one of its highest rated recruiting classes in history, and now faces the allegation that rising sophomore Silvio De Sousa unnamed by the FBI's revelations but easily identified was an unwitting part of a guardian's bidding war between apparel companies.
That the school remains in discussions on a 12-year, $191 million contract extension with adidas the company that has allegedly "victimized" Kansas only adds to the muddy mess.

This story packs enough for a series of in-depth and layered discussions, but let's start here: If it's proven that KU coach Bill Self or any of his assistants knew about a payment, they will likely be fired. And if it's proven that De Sousa knew about a payment, he will likely be ineligible and KU's 31 wins, Big 12 championship, and Final Four appearance last season vacated.
But if it were that simple, this would be a much easier (and shorter) column because here is a deeper truth:
So much money is exchanged so often and in so many different ways that those inside college basketball find it easy to believe KU and De Sousa were unaware.
Plausible deniability is an important thing, but there's actually another term for this, used by many coaches, including two who spoke for this column: "legally cheat."
Here's how it usually works. A parent, guardian or someone close to a top prospect creates an AAU team with a sponsorship of, say, $100,000 from a shoe company. Well, it might only cost $30,000 to run that AAU team. This is how business is typically done. This is how shoe companies typically buy influence.
Or, agents can have influence. An agent can build a relationship with a prospect before a college can sign him. The agent has a certain level of influence and can guide a prospect to a certain program.
You know we gotta get him back, the agent might tell the coach, which means the representation after the player goes to the NBA. If the agent signs the player out of college, the agent knows he can trust the program and a mutually beneficial relationship strengthens.




Bill Self reacts to new charges against Adidas executive that reference KU players

Kansas coach Bill Self reacted to new charges filed April 10, 2018 against Adidas executive James Gatto, who is alleged to have conspired to pay the mother and to a guardian of two unnamed KU basketball players without the university's knowledge.


This is the inevitable result with NCAA rules that are antiquated, dishonest and built for a reality that does not involve billions of dollars and competitive human beings.
There are so many people making money on this. Coaches, most obviously, but also recruiting services, shoe companies, trainers, consultants, nutritionists and, yes, of course, media.
AAU showcases sometimes require $350 per college coach. If a college sends its whole staff, that's $1,400. The charge is technically for a packet, but coaches joke that the schedules in the packets are usually wrong, so what are they really paying for?
This is the world in which Kansas basketball operates, doing so with eyes wide open, and a coach who does not have virgin eyes. You can see all of this in the school's contract with adidas, and the ongoing negotiations for an extension.
The tendency is to say Kansas is foolish to sign its future to adidas so quickly after FBI allegations of an employee "defrauding" the university, but what's the alternative? Sign with Under Armour, the company that presumably put in the opening bid on De Sousa? Or Nike, connected to schools with coaches who've been arrested as part of the investigation?
"You can't clean this thing up 100 percent, no matter what," said a Power Five athletic administrator. "This thing hasn't been pure, ever."
These contracts are so central to the success of athletic departments that administrators and coaches call shoe companies "partners," not "sponsors," and you could say that when a company is giving you $191 million you work for them, not the other way around.
And in that sense, there is a cogent argument to be made for Kansas staying with adidas, and not just because the other options would come with the same rules risks.
As it stands right now, the terms of the extension would triple the payout to KU. The employee alleged to be involved in the defrauding is not in the contract, and KU again, it's crucial that the school is not proven to be aware of any violations can use the investigation to improve the deal's terms.
Maybe that means a buyout depending on the result of this or any future investigations. Maybe it means additional protections. Washington announced a 10-year deal with adidas last week, which a source said included "verbiage" to insulate the school from scandal. At the very least, Kansas will want what Washington got.
The cold truth is that adidas provides specific advantages to Kansas basketball. Not just the money, but the status of the company's flagship program. That provides recruiting advantages and exposure that wouldn't exist sharing Nike's shine with Kentucky, Duke and North Carolina.
If college sports were even a little bit about amateurism, and purity, and student-athletes, then Kansas would go without an apparel partner or find one without a profit motive.
Kansas won't do the former and can't do the latter, because that doesn't exist. This is the world it has chosen, the reality it lives in.
University administrators can extend their dishonesty by stretching the FBI's use of the word victim. It's a counterproductive and weak message.
But the rest of us can be honest about what's happening.


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GarlandBear84
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Makes me think about just watching the NBA instead of college ball.
Osodecentx
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Interesting articles
Fozzie
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Kansas is a very corrupt program. An attorney friend of mine in Houston told me that TJ Gassnola the guy testifying in this trial was very close to Larry Brown, John Calipari and Bill Self. He was always hanging around the Memphis program when Calipari was there. Of course we know Larry Brown is as corrupt as they come.

He said Gassnola used Martin Ford in Houston to get a lot of players to Self. Supposedly a financial guy in the Houston area. There is another guy Bill Duffy who is an agent that is a part of this funnel to Kansas.

He told me Wiggins, Diallo, Alexander, Oubre, Preston, DeSouza were all bought out of high school and that Kansas also paid big money for transfers like Newman and the Lawson twins.

NCAA will be considered a joke if they don't connect the dots here.
BaylorOkie
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Fozzie said:


NCAA will be considered a joke
You're right, but that ship has already sailed.
Illinois Bear2
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Wonder how much they paid Darrell Arthur? Wonder if Arthur can hang onto his NBA money?
Ashley Hodge
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Staff
Illinois Bear2 said:

Wonder how much they paid Darrell Arthur? Wonder if Arthur can hang onto his NBA money?
$75k

Back then they paid AAU coaches like Jazzy Hartwell to come speak or work at the elite camps. Most of these coaches got a few hundred bucks but some of the coaches for Kansas got considerably more, like 5 figures.
Ashley Hodge
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Staff

drahthaar
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Odious jerks.
willyric
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hard not to feel like we're all just a big joke in this circus of life.
love basketball and love the baylor bears.. but this is maddening. big ol' joke.

self, kansas, "non-professional" college basketball.

I wouldn't even know where to start as far as fixing it and I don't think it can be "fixed".
Stefano DiMera
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Selfs toupee is the biggest crime here.
beardoc
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Another bad coverup
Banned BarleyMcDougal
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Has anyone here ever read the KU 247 board? The term cognitive dissonance doesn't seem to stretch enough to fit whatever mentality those people maintain. It's a cult. And they just don't care. Brainwashed loonies. You could show them all the evidence in the world and they wouldn't be able to comprehend it because they're in too deep.

College sports are an unfixable mess. Not to dredge up politics, but it's eerily similar to capitalism with the machinations that persist. Sports apparel companies, tv networks, universities, boosters, families/extended families - and the list goes on. All looking to make that bank. Money, money, money. All the while the rich stay rich because of the system. It's all rigged. Every sport is rigged. That's how I honestly feel. Perhaps that's a crazy position to take, but I feel like I'm sincerely not far off from the truth.

It's almost enough to make me consider just not following sports altogether. Maybe fishing would work.

Banned BarleyMcDougal
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BTW, that Mellinger guy is the same KU alum turned yellow journalist that wrote that BILL SELF should "lead the charge" on reform.

That's gotta qualify as nepotistic lunacy akin to how the Nazis took over Germany. Some people lose their gotdang brains when the ground starts to shift.
vanillabryce
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Capitalism is working out pretty well I thought. You know dragging people out of poverty all over the world, improving lifespans, and technological advances.

EatMoreSalmon
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BarleyMcDougal said:

Not to dredge up politics,...




Save it for the R&P board, please. Putting it on the basketball board is like making people listen to Bill Self denials in person.
Banned BarleyMcDougal
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vanillabryce said:

Capitalism is working out pretty well I thought. You know dragging people out of poverty all over the world, improving lifespans, and technological advances.

Sure if you ignore the fact that 1% of the population controls as much wealth as the bottom 90%. Is Kansas a job creator?

It's an accurate comparison in that context and I'm gonna stand by it i.e. the wealthy get wealthier. The non-blueblood teams mostly put up with this bull!@#$ because they also are in on the money grab. It doesn't make it right. In fact, I can't stand it. Those jackalope morons who support UT football, KU basketball, Bama football, Kentucky basketball, etc...act like they don't need to cheat because of their status, when in fact they cheat to get players exponentially more than programs who can't (or don't have the boosters) write fat checks to those kids or their family members sticking their hands out.

I'm not literally trying to rip on capitalism. It has its merits in a vacuum and often in practice, but stuff goes on behind the scenes to make sure the money stays with those who have the money.
EvilTroyAndAbed
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vanillabryce said:

Capitalism is working out pretty well I thought. You know dragging people out of poverty all over the world, improving lifespans, and technological advances.


A mix of capitalism and socialism, yes. Pure unfettered capitalism would literally wipe out the lower class.
bunation
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EvilTroyAndAbed said:

vanillabryce said:

Capitalism is working out pretty well I thought. You know dragging people out of poverty all over the world, improving lifespans, and technological advances.


A mix of capitalism and socialism, yes. Pure unfettered capitalism would literally wipe out the lower class.


Remove morality from any form of economic & political system and you get greed, power, & immorality. Just look at America's trend over the past 60 years in all segments of our society/culture.

It's not the system. It's the morality, or lack thereof, of people.

Self and his ilk are devoid of the principles of honesty, integrity, fairness & sportsmanship. They are replaced with deceit, pride, greed & power.

Happens with capitalism, socialism, social democracy, communism and sports...........
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