Just a few days ago, you saw Louisville’s 2013 National Championship stripped. Now we have head coach Sean Miller reportedly on an FBI wiretap offering Christian Dawkins $100,000 to influence DeAndre Ayton to come to Tucson, according to a late-Friday report from Yahoo! Sports.
Please do not start with the whole “Everyone does it in college sports” argument. I would like to believe that there are some programs that cannot, largely because they do not have the financial stability of frankly any school in a “Power Five” conference.
Dawkins is a key figure in the FBI probe that saw Rick Pitino eventually dismissed from Louisville (NCAA Taking Title From Pitino, Louisville More Clean-Up Than Punishment), and many believe could end up rocking college basketball to its core. Ayton would have jumped to the NBA, if not for the current “one and done” rule the league has in place.
Let me be clear about one thing, and that is that I have never been a fan of Arizona at any time. My allegiance in the Pac 12 lies with UCLA, and any time a rival can be knocked down a peg, I will lose zero sleep. That being said, it makes you wonder if such a deal resulted in Lonzo Ball last year, when he went “one and done” with the Bruins.
Miller built Xavier into a mid-major power from 2004-09, then sold out to take the job left vacant when Lute Olson retired. Xavier sure did not miss him, as is evident by the job Chris Mack has done (Musketeers Focus Laser Sharp Heading Into March). Miller initially turned down the job, but then accepted, having never visited the school.
Missouri’s bankroll is not on par with other SEC schools like Kentucky or Florida, so I find the idea of Michael Porter Jr. accepting a similar payment far less likely. If Porter would have gone to Kentucky, or another school with a questionable marquee head coach, then you might see this story headlining 60 Minutes. Michigan State sophomore forward Miles Bridges was cleared by the school, as his name was named in the FBI probe. Tom Izzo you would hope would be able to live up to the high-standards he is portrayed as having my the media, and court of public opinion. It still does not mean Bridges, Ayton, and Porter will be declaring for the NBA draft after their respective seasons end.
Miller would be reportedly owed $5 million if fired without reason, and $10 million if fired with cause. Now the school may try to recoup some of that salary, if it was found that the tampering started and ended with either Miller, and/or Athletic Director Dave Heeke (or Heeke's predecessor, Greg Byrne). It was announced on Saturday afternoon that Miller would not coach the #14 Wildcats in a key Pac 12 matchup against Oregon.
You should see some sort of report in the coming days as to Miller’s future in Arizona, which will likely cause the dominoes to fall in the desert. Ayton would certainly be ruled ineligible, and the conference--if not the NCAA--would institute some form of postseason ban on the Wildcats, with the Pac 12 Tournament slated to open 7 March. By the by, Arizona is currently 12-3, and atop the conference standings with three games left in the regular season.
Miller claims he will be vindicated of the allegations. Apparently the report was strong enough where early Saturday afternoon, four-star high school recruit Shareef O’Neal de-committed out of a verbal pledge he made several weeks ago to Arizona. The irony is O’Neal is the son of NBA Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal, one of the stars of the 1994 motion picture Blue Chips that chronicled a pay-for-play scandal of a prominent college basketball program.
This FBI probe is quickly turning into the best thing for college basketball. I have a lot of respect for Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski, but if Sean Miller is on paper-thin ice, how thick is the surface if their names become evident in the coming days?
-JC24