Why Kansas playing victim in recruiting scandal is rankling many in college hoops




DISCLOSURE: I grew up in KS and my family is full of KU fans.

- There's a big disconnect between what Forde is complaining about in his headline and what actually happened. KU is named as a victim in the federal indictment. That's up to the prosecutor. It's not like this all happened and KU just announced in the press that they were a victim. Forde's article even lists the reasons that KU is a victim.

- Forde lists a bunch of sketchy episodes in KU basketball history that definitely call into question the program's cleanliness, but have absolutely no legal bearing on the case at hand. And again, this is a legal matter.

- OTOH, as I told my brother, the University of Kansas is named as the victim. That's not the same as the KU hoops program. The University was defrauded in that Adidas paid players to go there. I just wonder how Adidas could be pushing kids to schools without the program's knowledge/involvement. I think the "defrauded the university" thing is the only actual crime the USAO can identify, but it might not absolve the coaches. In other words, the USAO wants to go after this case, and this is the only way they can figure out to say someone broke the law. But to name KU as a victim in an effort to find a chargeable crime, is not necessarily the same thing as saying the hoops program is totally innocent.

- We went over this in other threads, but the case of the UNC academic scandal is extremely different from this and other player eligibility cases. THe NCAA somewhat understandably ruled that they didn't have jurisdiction because lots of non-athlete students were, in fact, taking this sham courses.

- Lastly, people need to remember that the DOJ and the FBI have subpoena and wiretap power, and the NCAA doesn't. It's not fair to expect the NCAA to conduct investigations that are anywhere near as thorough as the DOJ can do.
 




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