Ostensibly Hoops

[eCat]

nope, just read its Nike schools too

this will get interesting

[aTm]

Auburn is Under Armour, Arizona is Nike, Oklahoma State is Nike. USC has some kind of weird deal I think but I think they are Nike. The big adidas schools that get all the known adidas recruits have been UCLA, Kansas, and Louisville. We certainly don't seem to.

[aTm]

University-7 (the other one besides University-6 [Louisville] associated in the complaint against Jim Gatto, adidas exec) would seem to be Miami who I think just switched recently from Nike to Adidas.

[hedge]

What is the nature of the scandal?

[aTm]

It basically confirms everything you already knew about college basketball. Shoe companies, travel teams, financial advisors, and agents pay players and families and work with unscrupulous college coaches to steer players to certain schools and pay college coaches in order to have them steer players to particular advisors and representatives in systematic fraud designed to be hidden from the NCAA, uh, allegedly.

[aTm]

Involved parties...

Lamont Evens, coach at Oklahoma State, investigated while at South Carolina

Chuck Person, coach at Auburn

Emanuel Richardson, coach at Arizona

Tony Bland, coach at USC

Rashan Michel, NCAA

Jim Gatto, Adidas

Merl Code, Nike

Munish Sood, Princeton Capital

Recruits/players involved so far seem to be Brian Bowen, Louisville, and Jahvon Quinerly, Arizona

[Jungle Rat]

Ecat had a birthday the other day. Probably past 50

[eCat]

I think those names are just the tip of the iceberg

[Jungle Rat]

Mike Price

[Saint]

It's 9-11 for college hoops

[Saint]

It basically confirms everything you already knew about college basketball. Shoe companies, travel teams, financial advisors, and agents pay players and families and work with unscrupulous college coaches to steer players to certain schools and pay college coaches in order to have them steer players to particular advisors and representatives in systematic fraud designed to be hidden from the NCAA, uh, allegedly.

Not hard to hide when you're not looking

[DooKSucks]

Here is the kicker people are missing: Dennis Smith

Dennis Smith was wrapped up in Adidas. Adidas even sent stuff to Raleigh for Dennis that the rest of the team didn't receive.

Also, Dennis Smith's high school coach is a fucking crook, literally.

[DooKSucks]

The teacher and coach will serve three months in jail and spend five years on probation for failing to remit $388,000 in employees’ income taxes to the government.

RALEIGH — Trinity Christian School basketball coach and teacher Heath Curtis Vandevender pleaded guilty Wednesday to embezzling more than $388,000 from North Carolina’s taxpayers.

In a plea-bargain agreement, Vandevender pleaded guilty to embezzlement of state property, a felony. He is to serve three months in jail, pay a $45,000 fine plus court costs, do 100 hours of community service and be on probation for five years. If he violates his probation, a prison sentence of at least one year and four months, but no more than two years and five months, would be activated.

The embezzled money, which the school owed the North Carolina Department of Revenue, has been repaid, lawyers said.

Trinity Christian has produced a number of college basketball players, including many high-profile recruits. The most recent coached by Vandevender was Dennis Smith Jr., picked ninth in the NBA Draft last week by the Dallas Mavericks. Smith played one year at N.C. State, averaging better than 18 points and earning ACC Freshman of the Year honors.

Vandevender, 49, didn’t keep the money for his own use, his lawyer, Trey Fitzhugh, told Superior Court Judge Kendra Hill.

Instead, he used the money to pay the private school’s expenses, Fitzhugh said, when it struggled with finances and cash flow. The school is so low-budget that Vandevender recently patched the parking lot’s potholes himself instead of hiring a contractor, Fitzhugh said. Employees frequently do similar tasks, the lawyer said.

“There were funds to pay the withholding taxes, but the issue with that is, they wouldn’t have been able to maintain the school in other areas,” Fitzhugh said. “They’re juggling as best they can with limited resources to keep these kids in school.”

Trinity Christian School receives tax money to help lower-income families pay the tuition to enroll their children. In the 2015-16 school year, the Opportunity Scholarship voucher program paid the school $519,750 on behalf of 130 students. This was the most in North Carolina.

According to the state Department of Revenue, Vandevender was vice president of a parent organization of Trinity Christian School.

From January 2008 to January 2016, Vandevender failed to pay the state the income tax money that had been withheld from 80 to 100 employees’ paychecks in that time, said Special Deputy Attorney General Ryan Haigh.

Vandevender was arrested in February.

Hill ordered Vandevender to begin his jail time on Aug. 1. She recommended that he be allowed work release. Fitzhugh requested work release so that Vandevender can continue to teach and coach. Vandevender, after his arrest and release on bail, continued to coach the team in the state playoffs in February.

Trinity, according to its website, is an independent, nonprofit, private day school educating students in grades K-12. A board of trustees governs Trinity, and the head of school is the senior administrator.

Vandevender was a four-year letterman in basketball at Campbell University, graduating in 1991. He is the son of Trinity Christian Church founder Rev. Dennis Vandevender.

Staff writer Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@fayobserver.com, 486-3512 and 261-4710.

[hedge]

IC mods are all but saying many are going down in this, and they usually play it close to the vest. I don't really think Cal would get involved in anything like this, esp. knowing how the spotlight is on him and UK, but what about World Wide Wes?? Hmmmm.....

[DooKSucks]

I haven't had time to peruse IC in depth. I just logged on here for a synopsis.

[hedge]

They're saying Pitino is done. Makes you wonder about all those UK teams from the 90's...

[hedge]

It's days like this you wish Mecca was still around...

[Saint]

Good lord, the CNNSI boards would have exploded. Sysop Judy would have been awakened by the smell of servers on fire and put out a mayday.

[hedge]

Opening line of the story I read on this:

"The worst-kept secret in college basketball is how coaches, sneaker executives, sports agents, travel-team coaches and financial advisers, often through under-the-table payments, steer top high school talent first to NCAA programs and later to apparel brands and professional representation once they enter the NBA. "

I think UNC's case against the NCAA just got a little easier. I can just see a judge dressing down an NCAA lawyer along the lines of "you guys have turned a blind eye to outright crime for years but yet you can't settle this piddly bojangle shit without having it end up here? Fuck you, case dismissed"...

[eCat]

yea, its sad that we're a shell of what we used to be.

With everything that is going on in college basketball those board would be in meltdown - thousands of posts a day.

I can't believe Pitino has a job still, and this has to be his walking papers.

I'm not going to say Cal isn't involved - I suspect that was S.O.P. at Memphis and maybe his early years at UK. The rumor was A.D. wanted $200K and if Bryan Bowen gets $100K then AD, player of the year and championship maker is worth every penny of $200K. $200K seemed so absurd at the time that no one considered it possible.


This could very well be a test of Cal's teflon coating.