The undercover informant who wore wiretaps for the government and broke open the scandals involving USC, Arizona, Ok State, Kansas, Auburn, etc is cooperating with the NCAA, according to a court filing in advance of his sentencing. That doesn't bode well for the schools currently under active investigation by the NCAA as he was perhaps the most critical witness of all in exposing how these programs have been operating. A lot of witnesses with info simply turn the other way when the NCAA comes asking questions, so this is potentially pretty significant.

Then again, given how feckless and impotent the NCAA is, you never know.

https://www.latimes.com/sports/usc/story/2020-01-31/key-informant-cooperating-ncaas-probe-into-college-basketball-corruption

As long as a Kansas gets their due, i don't care if usc and u of a go down too.

It's been a while. What was illegal about what they did? I understand that it is an NCAA violation, but if you call the "bribe" a "commission" what is illegal?

"The federal probe became public in September 2017 when FBI agents arrested four college basketball assistant coaches Tony Bland (USC), Book Richardson (Arizona), Chuck Person (Auburn) and Lamont Evans (Oklahoma State) as part of a wide-ranging look into coaches accepting bribes to direct players to use a specific sports management company when they turned professional."

NVBear78 said:

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It is insane that Arizona, Oregon, USC Kansas and the rest of them have gone Scott free for years with no NCAA penalties given what has been heard on tape and the convictions of their assistant coaches.

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I agree but it's just a process issue. The NCAA agreed to back off while the legal cases were pending. And once they were resolved, they launched investigations and sent NOAs per their process. It's still a ridiculously slow process that the NCAA uses especially when they were hand-delivered most of the relevant information.

Nothing will happen

BGGB2 said:

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NVBear78 said:

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It is insane that Arizona, Oregon, USC Kansas and the rest of them have gone Scott free for years with no NCAA penalties given what has been heard on tape and the convictions of their assistant coaches.

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Agreed. But after nothing happened to UNC (fake classes for athletes for decades) and the slap on the wrist for PSU (Sandusky), I have no faith that anyone notable will ever get significant NCAA penalties ever again.

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PSU was drilled. They didn't get the death penalty, but the loss of scholarships decimated their program. They just changed the culture quickly, which allowed them to rebuild.

The UNC thing is tricky. Because any and all students at UNC could enroll in the sham classes, the NCAA couldn't do anything about it. Had it been only for athletes, they would have been drilled. The major issue is that the UNC system and the accreditation board did nothing.

UrsaMajor said:

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Weren't the penalties against PSU reduced when the university threatened to sue?

The NCAA rationale for not hammering UNC was laughable. The sham classes were available for athletes and a few select others, but not the student body at large. It was basically cover for doing nothing.

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PSU's penalties were definitely reduced a year or two after they were handed down. I'm not sure if that was due to legal action.

Agreed regarding UNC. It really felt to me like the NCAA was looking for any fig leaf they could hide behind to avoid penalizing a blueblood.

BGGB2 said:

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UrsaMajor said:

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Weren't the penalties against PSU reduced when the university threatened to sue?

The NCAA rationale for not hammering UNC was laughable. The sham classes were available for athletes and a few select others, but not the student body at large. It was basically cover for doing nothing.

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PSU's penalties were definitely reduced a year or two after they were handed down. I'm not sure if that was due to legal action.

Agreed regarding UNC. It really felt to me like the NCAA was looking for any fig leaf they could hide behind to avoid penalizing a blueblood.

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One issue is that with the $$$ involved in college athletics universities are going to "lawyer up" to defend that $$$. UNC argued fairly persuasively that while the course was a joke the NCAA was going down a very slippery slope best addressed by accreditors. The problem there was that accreditors are even LESS likely to take action against an R1 with 40K+ students who, in the worst case, would suddenly find their lives thrown into serious disarray with threats to their financial aid.

socaltownie said:

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The problem there was that accreditors are even LESS likely to take action against an R1 with 40K+ students who, in the worst case, would suddenly find their lives thrown into serious disarray with threats to their financial aid.

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The reverse happened a few years ago between CCSF and the ACCJC when overzealous accreditors nearly shut down the college. Either way it would have been the students and faculty who got screwed.

BGGB2 said:

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NVBear78 said:

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It is insane that Arizona, Oregon, USC Kansas and the rest of them have gone Scott free for years with no NCAA penalties given what has been heard on tape and the convictions of their assistant coaches.

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Agreed. But after nothing happened to UNC (fake classes for athletes for decades) and the slap on the wrist for PSU (Sandusky), I have no faith that anyone notable will ever get significant NCAA penalties ever again.

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Except Cal, perhaps.

stu said:

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socaltownie said:

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The problem there was that accreditors are even LESS likely to take action against an R1 with 40K+ students who, in the worst case, would suddenly find their lives thrown into serious disarray with threats to their financial aid.

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The reverse happened a few years ago between CCSF and the ACCJC when overzealous accreditors nearly shut down the college. Either way it would have been the students and faculty who got screwed.

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I did not follow the CCSF dispute closely enough to know how serious the threat really was or what was at the heart of it.

Scathing testimony today regarding Nike. So odd...I just assumed that the recruitments of DeAndre Ayton and Bol Bol were entirely legit. Just the tip of the iceberg.

Also, old friend Gary Franklin Sr is in the middle of it.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/28654848/ex-aau-coach-testifies-nike-employees-directed-payments-basketball-recruits-parents-handlers

socaltownie said:

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stu said:

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The reverse happened a few years ago between CCSF and the ACCJC when overzealous accreditors nearly shut down the college. Either way it would have been the students and faculty who got screwed.

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I did not follow the CCSF dispute closely enough to know how serious the threat really was or what was at the heart of it.

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The threat was deadly serious and caused the City of San Francisco to file a lawsuit against the ACCJC. That along with state and local political action reined in the ACCJC and saved CCSF.

I have a personal interest because I work at another JC which had previously been given a show cause order by the ACCJC. They didn't care how our students were doing but had a long list of complaints about our insufficient level of bureaucracy. After two years of massive bureaucratic effort we were able to get our accreditation restored.

University (using that term loosely) of Oregon is the embodiment of the adage:

"A fish rots from the head down."

stu said:

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socaltownie said:

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stu said:

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The reverse happened a few years ago between CCSF and the ACCJC when overzealous accreditors nearly shut down the college. Either way it would have been the students and faculty who got screwed.

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I did not follow the CCSF dispute closely enough to know how serious the threat really was or what was at the heart of it.

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The threat was deadly serious and caused the City of San Francisco to file a lawsuit against the ACCJC. That along with state and local political action reined in the ACCJC and saved CCSF.

I have a personal interest because I work at another JC which had previously been given a show cause order by the ACCJC. They didn't care how our students were doing but had a long list of complaints about our insufficient level of bureaucracy. After two years of massive bureaucratic effort we were able to get our accreditation restored.

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Thanks. What I didn't really understand is that since the ACCJC is largely made up of California CCs it made limited sense that they would wield the big stick against one of their own. That said, as you note, a lot of it can revolve around the accreditor wanting MORE bureaucracy (aka staff) ;-)

UrsaMajor said:

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The NCAA rationale for not hammering UNC was laughable. The sham classes were available for athletes and a few select others, but not the student body at large. It was basically cover for doing nothing.

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Maybe that is partly why USC hired former UNC Chancellor Carol Folt as President recently. She clearly knows how to work miracles in exonerating corrupt programs.