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UCLA's Shabazz Muhammad, who was ranked by many as the #1 recruit for 2012, is not travelling with his team to China while the NCAA investigates potential improper benefits during his recruitment-
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If you recall -- NCAA has bellowed many warnings that they are going to get serious and penalize players and programs that are involved with this exact type of cheating and impermissible benefits...
there was even a lot of hooting that NCAA did just that a week ago when they came down REALLY hard on Central Florida...
so we should expect a very prompt and severe penalty? - since this kid's connections to the sleazy, banned agents is so well known that many schools didn't even bother to try to recruit the kid....right?
...nope - expect some long delayed ruling that, like the Cam Newton ruling, uses some horribly illogical argument to get the kid off easy
...or like Ryan Boatright, Josh Selby, John Wall, and others got nothing or only got a couple games suspension and their schools never got penalized at knowing they were asking for payoffs.. LINK -
Wow, hope they get that worked out before the Sycamores go to LA to open the new Pauley Pavillion on November 9th. Hate to give them any excuses when we beat their a$$ ?
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Here's yet another report of a player being paid during the recruiting to choose a certain school...
The story is amazing with details sufficient to and believable...you'll have to click to see the name of the school..
this kid has absolutely nothing to gain by saying this, he's already blown his career and is in prison...and clearly has no bone to pick - just decided to come clean...
..and sincerely hopes his tale will help some other young players from making the same mistakes.
"..Hargett spoke of dealing with an agent at 15 and of eventually choosing to attend *********** because he was offered $20,000.
..Hargett wanted to go to Arizona. The Wildcats won the national title in 1997
and had recently had a string of star guards like Miles Simon, Mike Bibby and
Jason Terry on their roster. Coach Lute Olson made two trips to watch
Hargett in high school, but the Wildcats could not get Hargett to visit their
campus. He said that Arizona refused to break N.C.A.A. rules and fly out his
mother for a recruiting trip.
But *********** put together a more intriguing package for the Hargett
family. Mike Hargett’s wife, Joy, said that ********** planned on hiring her
husband for a low-level staff position, which was allowable under N.C.A.A.
rules. Mike Hargett had worked for the ********** assistant Chris Cheeks
at a Richmond high school years before. Jonathan Hargett did not want to go
to **********, but he said that he was offered $20,000 a year to go there
and that he committed at Mike’s urging.
Payments from *********** to Hargett could not be independently verified,
and coaches and officials who were at *********** at the time deny
knowledge of payment. Hargett also said that when he was asked by the
N.C.A.A. if he received any money from ************, he lied to preserve
his eligibility.
But Hargett says now that a deal was in place and that after Mike Hargett
died, he honored his brother’s wishes and went there.
“He was going to be a coach, and they were going to give him a house,”
Hargett said of *********** and his brother. “At the time, he had three
kids.”
.... Still, there were complications. Hargett said he never received the full
$20,000 he expected. Instead, he said he received $13,000 to $17,000 total,
some from *********** and some from Anderson, the intermediary for
Holloway, the financial adviser.
After an early-season game during his freshman season, Hargett said his
mother told him that Cheeks, the ********** assistant, gave her $5,000 “in
a bag.” Hargett said his mother gave him 10 $100 bills, and he and his
girlfriend went to a mall where they bought Air Jordans, Timberlands and a
few pairs of jeans. Hargett said he never knew the source of the money but
thought that it came from Brett Bearup, a financial adviser who was
prominent on the Amateur Athletic Union scene at that time. Hargett said his
mother had met Bearup at a tournament...."
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Thanks tornado. Just curious as to your reasoning to x-out the name of the school involved?
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btw- even further on in that article is a the part where the kid's college coach was fired then replaced by Dan Dakich - who immediately finds the corruption so bad at his new hire that he quits in a matter of days and returns to Bowling Green (kinda pulling a Dana Altman even before Dana did it)
...but in effect Dakich's own words confirm the accuracy of Hargett's story about the payoffs...
Funny how the Big East & NCAA never bothered to ven look into this one despite being tipped off plenty (note the comments from then New Mexico coach Fran Fraschilla)
...and B4L - just don't want to see the inevitable small minded accusations that the only reason this was posted was to attack a certain school
Honestly - I know this story is 10-12 years old but I think the problem is probably far worst now, the NCAA knows ALL ABOUT IT, and constantly looks the other way pretending it doesn't happen - and enabling it to go on and on -
every once in a while clobbering a North Florida or handing meaningless or non-existent penalties to a Kelvin Sampson ...Comment
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Gotcha!
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The NCAA is now looking into the recruitment of all 3 of UCLA's highly touted freshman recruiting class-
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one insider says...
"they went to the highest bidder"...
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That article is a little dated, as Parker has apparently been cleared already.
As a UCLA alum and fan (second only to BU), I'm hoping the NCAA finds nothing wrong, but not feeling too confident that is going to happen at this point.Comment
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NCAA is now asking a bunch of questions about Texas' star sophomore..
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The lawyer for Shabazz Muhammad is making excuses for his client and arguing that the NCAA has no jurisdiction to punish him. Sounds like he is expecting the NCAA to come down hard on Muhammad.
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followup to this story ..
UCLA star Shabazz Muhammad's father has now been involved in a bank fraud case...
but the details also include that Muhammad's father got a huge "loan" with his son's future PRO basketball earnings used as collateral!
This is a HUGE violation of NCAA amateurism rules - obviously a player on a college team nor his family can receive any financial benefit from his abilities or role as a member of the team.
Let's see if the NCAA bothers to even notice, tho, as this is similar to the USC/Reggie Bush case - but NCAA wouldn't even give it a sniff until there was a massive crescendo of criticism of them in the media...
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Now we have yet another possible impermissible benefits scandal at UCLA
This column says that UCLA even knew about the money being given tot he kid...
Virtually every one of the top Pac-12 schools has had this kind of scandal recently - I think the reigning perception is that the recruits can get richer faster if they choose UCLA, USC, Oregon, etc...Comment
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