by Kent Sterling
We know that the NCAA is taking a long look into the recruiting of rivals.com #1 recruit Josh Selby, and his relationship with Carmelo Anthony’s business manager Robert Frazier.
What is new is that investigation stretches beyond Bill Self, Selby, KU and Frazier. It includes the basketball programs at Kentucky and Tennessee, and their relationships during the recruiting process with Frazier and Selby. This is according to a person close to the investigation.
At some point, the arrogance of the crooks and pimps in college hoops will cause the whole mess to unravel, and this allegedly sordid business with Selby might hasten that process.
Alabama football coach Nick Saban was ripped for calling agents who prey upon the kids playing in college “pimps”. Making an average of $4 million per year for his work in recruiting football players who sweat, bleed, and work 12-months a year in exchange for a scholarship most have little use for.
That Saban climbed on a very tall horse to shriek about pimps as he gathers great wealth on the backs of free labor was lost on no one, but there is no questioning that agents are every bit the users that Saban implied.
There are virtually no consequences available to anyone involved with an agency or street agent to discourage agents from engaging in behavior the NCAA forbids. The penalty binds to the athlete and program, and the agent just rolls on to another kid. A player is forbidden from entering into an agreement with a agent or accepting cash or gifts from an agent, but that sure isn’t a heavy price for an agent to bear – or any price.
So the Vols, Jaywawks, and Wildcats have reason to sweat because the NCAA is right at the end of its rope in the area of playing games. After listening to new NCAA president Mark Emmert in a couple of expansive interviews, there is no doubt in my mind that he isn’t a chair warmer type of guy and solutions will be found that will at the very least force the pimps to change their game a little bit.
Thieves will always find a way to steal, and the runners and street agents in college football and basketball will be no different. I’m not talking about the real agents who do what they do so well that they don’t need to cheat to get clients, but the slicksters who sell a 17-year-old a bill of goods and corrupt them because they see a potential meal ticket.
There will be a moment in time when the perfect storm event occurs and the NCAA will have a potential nightmare on its hands. Someone will have the crooks cold, and the hammer will fall hard. At that point, the game will change and the rules will begin to makes sense. The knuckleheads will be punished. The Josh Selby recruiting investigation may be that moment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/sports/ncaabasketball/17hoops.html?_r=1
This is a profile of Selby that ran in the New York Times on April 17th.
IU was actually in the mix with this kid for a while and was 5th on his final list.
It’s good that the Hoosiers didn’t get him. My understanding is that they have been very careful about hooking up with the wrong types of kids.
The Times piece says it all. In a later interview, Selby said he doesn’t know Bay Frazier.
I think you’ve got it a bit backwards, Ken; my understanding is that these superstar type of kids have been very careful about hooking up with Indiana.
The above profile details the Selby-Frazier relationship.
Your hatred for UK cracks me up. Indiana sucks!
How about another dose of, I don’t hate UK. I have no respect for Calipari. That has nothing to do with the university of the kids who play. How many times did I write positive things about Wall, Bledsoe, and Patterson. Christ, you UK message board boobs think it’s all about love and hate for the name on the front of the jerseys because it’s that for you. When I root for anyone, It’s for the kid wearing the jersey.
I like JaJuan Johnson at Purdue as much as any kid playing for Indiana. Matt Howard and Zach Hahn at Butler are great kids. I’m thrilled for them every time Butler wins.
You are too easily confused by logic and a lack of sentiment.
This is horse shit! Cite your sources if you are going to name universities. A university will not be punished for the recruitment of a player if the player didn’t even choose that university.
Nope. My source is absolutely solid, but I’m not going to name him or her.
Great point Zack. You’ve solved the Enigma machine of KY basketball, its the devils agreement they have with Memphis that Cal brought with him. KY can pay certain kids to attend Memphis, and Memphis can pay certain kids to attend UK. Both kids get paid, the universities get the kids they have rightfully acquired, WWW gets his cut, Agents get their clients, but the Universities cant be punished or even held liable. Its not a violation, because Zack says “A university will not be punished for the recruitment of a player if the player didnt even choose that university”!. Pure Appalachian brilliance, Zack! The scientists at Argonne National Labs tried, but its impossible to find a flaw in your logic!
I agree to a certain extent but don’t go rolling the “free labor” thing at me. They (the potential students) are getting an education (if they choose to take advantage of it) worth at least $80,000 in today’s market and a good deal more if it is from one of the really prestigous schools. If (and I say if) the kid is smart enough that degree has potential beyond imagination. No one, I REPEAT NO ONE, has a right to play in the NFL or the NBA or any other organization. They are part of the “pimping process” too. The deal with getting free college is that if (and this is really almost a certainty) the kid doesn’t make it big in professional sports they come out of the whole thing with something other than a wash rag to wash cars. The responsibility goes all the way down to elementary school. Don’t give athletically gifted kids anything free or easy. When they get to college age educate them to the degree that they will value that education and what it can do. As fans our insatiable thirst for new faces and talent we become part of the problem as well. Free labor? Well not if kids weren’t so ignorant.
The thing is the kids would never pay for the education regardless. Either the parents, Pell Grants, loans, or they wouldn’t have gone anyway because they have no interest in college make the cost and value of a college education moot in the eyes of many recruits. Every kid and parent with a kid being recruited by a big time program thinks the NBA is just an inch or two and a couple of breaks away. And those are the kids who aren’t sure they’re headed there.
Once in a while, they are right. Regardless, the value of the education is of no meaning to the kid who’s working 50 hours a week at football or basketball.
Is this an opinion piece or a news article? The University of Tennessee has not received a letter of investigation from the NCAA. I understand that it is Selby’s amateur status that is being investigated….not the universities recruiting practices. Have any of the schools received a letter from the NCAA?
It’s amazing that you are so distraught that your Indiana Hoosiers suck and will continue to suck for years to come. This is an obvious case of penis envy and Kent Sterling’s must be very small. You need to man up and accept that your Hoosiers are inferior to the teams you mention above and that their inferiority has nothing to do with your inept, tiresome, baseless claims of “they must be cheating cause they’re better than us” bullcrap. Good grief… you sre pitiful.
Who is Kent Sterling?? Never heard of ‘em, but this website was a pop up window while I surfed porn.
When is it that Indiana gets off NCAA-imposed probation? Good luck following an irrelevant program that has gone from laughing stock to invisible.
Peter Jurkin — Okay, you are back to laughing stock. Ben Dover wasn’t available?
Kind of like how Kentucky was before they hired a crook?
hahahahahaha more garbage. nobody link this terrible garbage. Anybody who believes that 4 schools are being looked at is dumb.
Hey, Kent…you’ve now hit kentuckysportsradio.com, so get prepared. Damn, man, you have no idea what kind of crap you’re in for now, do you? We’ve had some experience with this sort of hit-and-run “reporting” this summer, so we’re pretty used to it, but now you’ve managed to bring Big Blue Nation down on your own head. Smart move, dumbass.
http://kentuckysportsradio.com/?p=58695
Check out the last line of the post. The troops have been called to attention and you’re on the firing line. Enjoy!
There can be no NCAA basketball controversy anywhere on the planet without some goober like this dragging Kentucky into it. I have no idea who Kent is, or what his qualifications/sources are to be posting such material; but he just showed up on the Big Blue Nation’s hate list…..not a good place to be.
Big Blue Nation has a hate list. Seriously? I’m not saying that’s pathetic… no, actually I am saying that’s pathetic.
How can UNC be on the list when they never even recruited Shelby? BS
UNC?????? as much as I’d like it to be true, UNC never recruited Selby…..how do they fit in here????
Seriously, the NBA needs to lift the one year out of high school rule. Either go to the NBA or do a minimum of 2-3 years in college ball. If you take money, need money, etc. then go pro. If not, quit screwing over schools. I’m tired of the schools taking hits while the “kids” get off the hook. They’re 18 years old, they know the rules. Don’t get me started on these slimeballs that exploit these players for their own profitable gain.
What a horrible, horrible article. I am embarrassed to be grouped with you as an IU fan. Quit being a jealous prick and write about something worthwhile. This was something I would expect to read on a college kids blog, not a so-called “Journalist’s”.
sweet blog…lots of good information on it…
Get a life and write about something legit that involves your own school/region/state.
Knowingly posting something that is not true is slander Ken. I think you need to edit that blog to only include schools that actually recruited Selby.
Wow John, since you read they didnt recruit him on some website that means they didnt? You have phone transcripts, communication logs, alumni activity reports, agent to agent contacts, etc? You put the N in Naive.
Hey Kent have you fired again, jackass.
http://www.stampedeblue.com/2010/3/4/1356658/kent-sterling-the-former-program
Another irrelevant “journalist” with an obvious bias against a program that has moved beyond a mediocre period. Hey C**t Sterling…where was your “blog” when John Calipari was helping to raise over 1 million dollars for the relief effort in Haiti? and how much did the Hoosiers send those earthquake victims? You and your ” team” are both garbage. Let’s dig up some of your “writing” when your dumb ass was defending Kelvin Sampson. Shut up chump. And to imply that Indiana had a CHANCE to recruit Selby, much less land him, is hilarious. Go away douche bag.
Kelvin Sampson was never defended here. That was a bad hire with a predictable end from day one. Where have I ever implied that John Calipari is somehow without any virtue? He not only raised a lot of cash for Haiti, he was generous to visit a terminal kid in an Indianapolis hospital. I don’t think anyone in college athletics is completely evil, or even partly. I think some skirt or flaunt rules in order to gain a professional advantage for themselves and a financial reward for their players. That is against the rules, but the rules aren’t perfect either.
You edit out UNC, because most people who follow basketball recruiting know they weren’t even recruiting Selby, (you forgot to edit your mention of “tarheels” in the 7th paragraph btw). And now we’re supposed to believe the rest of this?
Really? Are you that convinced that your intelligence is superior to everyone else’s that you edit out one blatant lie and you expect us to eat up the rest?
Terrible.
NCAA investigators get drunk on weekends like everyone else, and talk a little shop. People act shocked, SHOCKED to believe Cal cheats. Sooo disappointed they are sooo far behind little Butler in every category. Even small schools in Indiana have more success than cheating and unsuccessful KY.
OH NO! Here comes the Big Blue Nation! OOOHHH! hear the BillyBob “umm slingblade umm” driving up I65?
IU sucks and will continue to suck ass for a long time. Get off UK’s BALLS. Jesus, this is one of the dumbest stories I’ve ever read. Go work for the Sun-Times, you goofy looking ass-goblin.
Will somebody please come find us!?!? Please!!
What an absolute joke of an article. You fist include UNC, then remove UNC, simply to give some sort of credibility to your “post”. If you’re trying to somehow influence the Cody Zeller recruitment to IU, keep dreaming. Get a clue, you moron.
I enjoy rubbing peanut butter on my naked body while looking at pictures of Tom Crean and humming the IU fight song.
You have nothing even approaching journalistic integrity. Do you even do the slightest bit of cursory research before mudslinging?
Hey Kent. Congrats again on getting mentioned on a real blog with a real fan base, driving your own numbers up. You always were good for getting hits that way. Too bad 1070 didn’t see the value — you made some nice predictions about UK and Purdue back in the day!
And nice edit on the North Carolina recruitment — might want to remove it from your Categories though…
opinions are like assholes; everybody has one.
Why the hell was UNC even mentioned in this horrific “article”? UNC did not recruit Selby & had Kendall Marshall coming in – in the same class – since he was a sophomore.
You trying to negative recruit again for your school, Kent? It worked so well for you with Irving, I can see why you’d want to do it again.
Kent, please stop telling people I cheat. It might be true and the idiots in Kentucky are too guilable to know the difference, but you don’t have to publicize it to the rest of the world. Oh, nevermind, I forgot most Kentucky fans don’t know how to read.
There’s no investigation. I just got the word from my source. I don’t know what you were trying to start,but it’s sad that you uploaded this slanderous filth. Relax UT,UK,KU fans. Obviously this clown wanted to cause an uproar.Also you lost all credibility when you had UNC and later took them off.
UK fans just absolutely kill me. Unless you stand up and salute the UK flag and say UK is the greatest college basketball program ever and that Coach Cal is the greatest coach ever and just because he has had two final 4 trips stripped from the record, none of it was his fault. Unless you say the above at attention, you are jealous of their program and a hater. They as a fan base cannot take any criticism what so ever. It is obvious that Cal knows how to play the game and he plays it very well. But sooner or later the NCAA will find something that sticks and when they I will be the first to laugh at a fan base that sold their souls for a coach that anyone with any brains knew was a cheat and nothing but a used car salesman.
I hate that you feel that way. Maybe one day you’ll know what it’s like to have a real basketball team to support.
when all is said and done it will be bill self not john calipari who is found to be the bigggest cheater. heard it here first, dog.
haha, you wish. And did I say you could talk? Get back to your corner, ugly step child.
Come down to Kentucky and find out about the hospitality my great Grandpa Jackson (descended from the Scott Jackson of Mackie’s Music World fame ) used to extend to wealthy business men going up to the oil fields in Eastern Kentucky from 1906 to 1918.
Same Scott Jackson of Deliverance fame? You sho have a purdy mouth. What the F are you talking about? What is a Mackies Music World, a Hazard KY roadside attraction? Get a life. This may be my all time favorite post, baph777.
Well, you’ve proven yourself to be a true idiot. Bobby Mackie’s Music World is on America’s List of Most Haunted Places. At the turn of the 20th century Alonzo Wilder and Scott Jackson, a dental student from Cincinnatti, were considered to be the most notorious criminals in the US because they were involved in the ritualistic murder of Pearl Bryant including throwing her head (that hasn’t been found to this day) down the well in a slaughter house in Wilder, Kentucky, that later became Bobby Mackie’s Music World.
Try taking that tone with me in person, boy, and my boot would be even farther up your A than Sheriff Wydell said he was going to shove his boot up the film critic’s A in The Devil’s Rejects.
Now I’m curious baph777, is said hospitality a good or bad thing? Upon acceptance of such a gracious offer, would one be extended fine dining and choice ladies? Or grisly possum and a dungeon out of Silence of the Lambs?
Apparently Kent Sterling thinks the Chicago Sun-Times business model is the way to go. When he discovers that the NCAA isn’t investigating Tennessee, Kansas and Kentucky but merely asking how their dealings with Selby were handled Mr. Sterling will deny he ever spread the rumor.
Define “investigate”. How would a person or organization investigate other than by asking the schools and Selby how their dealings were handled? That is the very definition of “investigate”.
There is a substantial difference between this story and that of the Sun-Times in that I made no allegation of any wrongdoing whatsoever. I reported that the NCAA is investigating the recruitment of Selby – not that Selby or his family accepted anything of value from anyone.
I expect an apology from you!
So now you’re saying there are no accusations of any wrong-doing and the NCAA is just asking a few questions? I don’t understand how that deserves the “OH MY GOD, Breaking news” title you used to imply something shady is happening. The Sun-Times didn’t make accusations either, just the “sources tell me” model. You did write “This is according to a person close to the investigation” didn’t you?
You inferred “OH MY GOD!” I didn’t write it. My headline is “Josh Selby and Three Major Programs Being Investigated by NCAA”. Where’s breaking news or anything not contained in the story.
The Sun-Times story specifically mention the a kid was paid $200K by Kentucky to commit to the Wildcat. I accused no one of anything, nor did I report that anyone did – simply that people inside the NCAA are investigating Selby’s recruitment by KU, UK, and Tennessee. They are.
But but but what about UNC in all this??? FAIL JUST FAIL!
You lost what little credibility you had when you changed the story mid-stream without giving any indication that it has, in fact, been altered. Did your “person close to the investigation” change his mind about UNC being investigated or did you just realize that your original lie wasn’t plausible?
P.S. Kentucky backed off Selby at around the mid-point of his senior year because of some of the issues that had become clear. Namely, that he was a taker and had issues surrounding him. The other reason is because Knight became the #1 target. If anything, the questions the NCAA might have for UK would be whether or not they have knowledge of Selby’s contact with an agent. But hey Kent, you just want to cast doubt on as many people as possible. You don’t care, which is sad. There was a day when integrity was important in your business. Those days are gone, eh?
wow, ku repeatedly gives the Big 12/10 a black eye
KU AD staff selling millions of $$ worth of tickets in the black market to the Pump Brothers all the while jacking donations and ticket prices up on there fan base yet neither the “retiring” AD nor Bill Self knew nothing about it.
I am sure they know nothing about this too. Look away nothing to see here at KU.
I would ask your source if UT (who did get a commitment from Selby) and UK who went another direction in Selby’r recruitment are being investigated as culpable in rules violations? Or if they are the subject of inquiries (which could be mistaken for invetigation) regarding the process and relationship with Selby in an effort to round out the definite investigation into KU and Selby. By using the word “investigation” with UT and UK (and as we have seen by now NOT UNC) you do open the door for casting the shadow of guilt their way. Your may still be very right, and both are being investigated for wrong doing. It would be interesting to see what your source close to the original KU investigation would have to say in way of clarification.
BTW KU and not UK is the college b-ball program with the most NCAA rules violations. They are also immersed in fraud from stem to stern right now. I think they might be the true Big Bad of College B-Ball.
In fact, didn’t Roy Williams flee KU under a cloud of NCAA investigation? Maybe there is more the the KU-UNC link than posters here want to admit. It seems to be a college that breeds cheating coaches. Now that is how you cast aspersions.
Did you know that the toothbrush was invented in Kentucky? Had it been invented anywhere else it would have been called the “teethbrush”! UK fans, get ready for an ugly descent into oblivion just as the Hoosiers are back dominating NCAA hoops.
Wow. What a racist article.
You are going to have to enlighten me as to how that is racist in anyway.
Keep up the good work, don’t let these blue idiots bother you. They are filthy people who live worthless lives, practice inbreeding, devour fast food, wander through Wal-Mart yelling at their lice infested mullet toddlers, with nothing better to do but follow “cayuts” and depend on the tax paying citizens of Louisville to pay their disabilty checks.
you sure about your “solid source”? i hope its not the same one that gave you the anthony davis story. man i wish i got paid for writing garbage on young kids and trying to ruin their lives. actually, on second thought, i would never even think about writing stuff like this. your a joke kent. you and jeff goodman would make the best douche bag team ever. i guess deep down inside you always thought you were gonna be a professional athlete and you failed at that. now you’re trying to make these young men into failures by making bogus accusations every chance you get. whats next kent? did one of the japanese players on the little league world series team use hgh? o wait a minute i just got a call from a solid source of my own…he or she (i cant tell you about my source, wink wink) has confirmed it, you’re an escaped mental patient who likes to eat little kids. now doesn’t that sound ridiculous kent? its all bs, just like your story. have a great day you idiot.
You have the wrong guy, pal. I never reported anything about Anthony Davis, but I do find it interesting that all the hubbub about a lawsuit has died down. Where’s the outrage from UK bigwigs now?
There are so many people searching for dirt on Calipari’s program that if there is any, it will be found. I hope Calipari is clean and that UK is as much fun to watch next year as they were with Wall, Bledsoe, and Patterson. If they aren’t, I would like the NCAA to bring down its full strength on the heads of those responsible, or those standing next to those responsible.