The Catastrophe of College Basketball

The NCAA and its teams have run into a never-before-encountered conundrum. The FBI has unearthed deep buried secrets that have proof for the first time.

Deandre Ayton. Sean Miller. Duke. Kentucky. North Carolina. Villanova.

These names along with several others, amounting a total of more than 20 college programs, at least 25 current and former college players, were caught in a league-wide scandal through an extensive six month long FBI investigation. The majority of all these cases are linked with the ASM sports agency, its founder Andy Miller, and former head agent Christian Dawkins, and the illegal benefits they fronted to the aforementioned players. Five top 10 prospects for the 2018 draft have been implicated, most notably projected number one pick Deandre Ayton caught via wiretap receiving $100K from Arizona head coach Sean Miller. Additionally NBA veterans such as Nerlens Noel, Kyle O'Quinn, and Kyle Lowry were found guilty, all of whom have been in the league at least five years. This shows that the scandal has been going on for several years at least, and according to 2017 number two overall pick, Lonzo Ball, "Everybody knows everybody's getting paid." Clearly, despite this being the first instance of real evidence, this is a well known situation in college basketball. Most shocking of all, perhaps, is that nine 2016 and 2017 draftees have been found guilty; Dennis Smith Jr., Josh Jackson, Kyle Kuzma, Markelle Fultz, P.J. Dozier, Bam Adebayo, Isaiah Whitehead, Diamond Stone, and Tim Quarterman received at least a combined $206,660. To think all of these expositions originated from the investigation into Pitino's recruiting scandal. That original investigation of course bore the news of the Louisville recruiters more using exotic dancers rather than illegal payments to recruit players for the past several years, which resulted in their recent years' wins being stripped along with their 2013 championship banner. Here analysis over the effects on top prospects and coaches will be provided as the aftermath surely will bear no good fruit.

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Effects on the Players:

San Diego State forward Malik Pope has been indefinitely suspended by the organization for allegedly receiving a $1,400 loan from his agent. Considering that's roughly a tenth of what the majority of individual payments came out to be and 1.6% of the highest payment, this does not bode well for his peers in similar situations. Most likely the current students will receive suspensions that could be weighted based on their benefits, or perhaps even be banned from their programs. The most probable punishment for current players however is a long suspension that will last into next season. As far as former college players that received benefits, they will most likely receive heavy fines, but will receive no punishment from their NBA organizations. Truthfully, the NBA and the individual teams won't care whatsoever about this whole situation which is where the situation perhaps gets most frustrating. Take Deandre Ayton for example, projected number one pick in the upcoming draft, who as mentioned before received $100K from Arizona. His draft stock should only fall maybe a spot or two, if at all because this comes down to a matter of morality rather than integrity for the players. The players receiving benefits most often did so to provide for their families and so really this does not degrade their integrity, however it certainly will come off as immoral. The NBA, and its teams alike have never cared about the morality of players, especially financially, so as long as the players are talented and committed to the game, they're on NBA radars. In fact GM's will most likely completely disregard the situation because receiving illegal benefits is not a sign of poor locker room presence, lack of drive, hot headedness, or any other discouraging off-court situations and so barely matters to draft status. The only way this situation should really affect draft status is the limited exposure to players considering many may have their seasons cut short with suspensions. Ultimately though, the illegal benefits will have minimal effect on draft status for top prospects.

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Effects on the Coaches:

Coaches, on the other hand, could suffer greatly from this situation as they've been caught red-handed committing one of the most despicable acts they could by tarnishing their names as top recruiters. To be precise, Auburn, Arizona, Oklahoma State, Alabama, Duke, Michigan State, Kentucky, LSU, Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, Seton Hall, USC, Kansas, Texas, Washington, Villanova, Clemson, Louisville, South Carolina, Utah, Wichita State, Xavier, Creighton, Iowa State, Vanderbilt, and Virginia, all top organizations both this year and in the past several years, have all been implicated. This includes coaching legends Mike Kryzyzewski, John Calipari, Roy Williams, Rick Pitino, and Jay Wright, as well as rising coach Sean Miller. While Miller's college career is almost indefinitely over since he was caught securing the $100K payment to Deandre Ayton by wiretap, the coaching legends realistically won't lose their jobs. Overall however, the primary penalties towards coaches should include multiple firings, suspensions, heavy fines, and most of all we could possibly say up to hundreds of wins stripped similarly to what happened to Rick Pitino and Louisville.

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As a personal note, it saddens me to hear all this and watch the league I've followed and dissected for years be shown as corrupt, to see the dirty doings of the coaches that revolutionized the leagues, and the legitimacy this is giving in lobbies against the NCAA. This is giving rise to the discussion over the JBA, led by Lavar Ball, as many incoming college prospects, especially Shareef O'Neal, will look at their options. The JBA would provide a chance for these athletes to legally receive payments and still develop their skills for the NBA. I hope if the JBA does take off however, its primary goal is to develop the players' skills rather than to earn a quick buck. Hopefully this will lead to a more honest NCAA and this is the extent of teams acting illegally.