Which NCAA BB team is dirty ?

Submitted by Wal-Mart Wolverine on

After watching UCLA humble our Wolverines with their superior recruits, I wondered what NCAA basketball teams are the dirtiest while recruiting? When I lived in Arizona three years ago, I got to be friends with my dentist whom is still best friends, former roommate, and fraternity brother with one of the "Big 12" head basketball coaches. He shared with me that the dirtiest program that he recruits against is "Duke". That surprised me but it came from a great source straight up. Any thoughts ?

SAMgO

December 11th, 2016 at 1:00 AM ^

People will say this is homer, but actually. This is why we're not a sweet 16+ team every year. I'm not complaining, but if you wanna know why a Jordan school with a strong history and brand name can't recruit, well....




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Jack Harbaugh

December 11th, 2016 at 11:29 AM ^

That 2011 class and 2012 class are once in a lifetime. You got a pissed off under the radar Ohioan and a lot of affluent middle/upper class kids to come to Michigan at the same time. 2 kids of former NBA players, a sharpshooting Canadian. To repeat that is almost impossible. We'll never get high 4* or 5* recruits because we won't offer them extras off the record. I'm ok with it. We do very well even without that and that's ok with most of us.




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bluebyyou

December 11th, 2016 at 1:35 PM ^

The 2011 and 2012 classes will in all likelihood never happen at Michigan again, at least not under Beilein.  How would he know Trey would turn into the player of the year and Nik would go to the NBA after two years.  Ditto for Lavert, although his injuries greatly hobbled his potoential. Then it was regression to the mean which is where we are now.

Beilein is a great guy but with the recent successes Michigan had, we should be further along than we are now.  Based on our talent, that  isn't going to happen any time soon.

Tater

December 11th, 2016 at 11:28 AM ^

My best guess is that UK, Duke and UCLA are the three dirtiest teams, with UNC and KU breathing down their necks.  We can reasonably extrapolate that Sparty has entered the race and that a bunch of other schools are at least paying "handlers" for a seat at the table, whether or not their boosters are paying recruits.

That is why I want college athletes to have the same rights that everyone else on any kind of scholarship does.

 

bacon

December 11th, 2016 at 10:52 AM ^

I've never heard about any wrongdoing in the history of the Michigan basketball program. Outside of the 90s of course. As an aside, there are a lot of big name programs that vacated wins in the 90s and 00s. I don't know if that speaks to how dirty the sport is, but it seems that vacating wins is just the cost of doing business in NCAA bball.

lilpenny1316

December 11th, 2016 at 11:31 AM ^

...who got helped out from associates back home.  It's nothing on the scale of what some other programs are doing.  It's more along the lines of what Jalen received before and during his time at Michigan.  

These are not associates that you saw in the lockerroom like during the Frieder/Fisher years.  These are guys you see hanging out at AAU practices and games and when kids return home from break in college.

 

Chalky White

December 10th, 2016 at 11:59 PM ^

Why are you surprised Duke is dirty? All of those recruits that used to go to UNC and Duke, now go to Kentucky and Duke. Kryzyzewski is linked to World Wide Wes just like Calapari. 

stephenrjking

December 11th, 2016 at 12:11 AM ^

I believe cheating in college sports is reasonably plenary, especially with today's national recruiting races. However bad it is at some places is how bad it is at all of the places at their level.

I'm not a Duke or coach K hater as many are. I don't think he's a bad guy and I don't mind some of their wins (helps that my sister is a Duke grad). So I have, in the past, tended to want to think the best of them.

But, c'mon.

If "dirty" at most of the top places means outright payments, free cars, total top-down corruption, then it is happening at most all of them. If "dirty" generally doesn't mean actual organized payment schemes, but it does mean some guys suspiciously have cash to throw around and some guys don't frequently attend their classes and the coach doesn't hear about it, then is it happening at most all of the schools. If "dirty" means that head coaches and their staffs want to stamp out the bad stuff and looking menacingly at boosters they suspect might not share their view, but they can't stop everything and guys are getting free tats and folks are piling the cash on them at frat parties, then it is happening at most all of the schools.

I raise an eyebrow at Cal getting the hot recruits at Kentucky every year. But if Kentucky is dirty, then Duke is dirty, and if Duke is dirty, then UNC is dirty, and if UNC is dirty, then Kansas is dirty, and if all of those schools are dirty, then places like Syracuse and UConn and Louisville and Michigan State and UCLA are dirty, and if all those schools are dirty, then a lot of their top in-conference rivals start looking pretty suspicious, and if it's widespread in each of these conferences...

I think it's plausible that Michigan misses on a lot of top recruits because they aren't willing to do certain things that other schools do. But we don't know that and it doesn't necessarily mean Michigan is the one moral paragon in the conference, either.

Optimism Attache

December 11th, 2016 at 5:53 AM ^

While I don't subscribe to the idea that there are dirty programs and clean programs, I think there are definitely differences across schools. For one, at some schools basketball is simply not a big deal, so there aren't likely dozens of boosters lining up to figure out how to get cash in tothe hands of good players. There has to be a critical mass of people who care enough to want to cheat for it to be a thing.

Second, I doubt that many coaches are involved in systematic cheating. The tone that these coaches set can make a big difference. If you make it a point to run a clean program, and you are very upfront about that with kids and program supporters, then I think the potential for cheating is lower than if you are coach who simply doesn't talk about it, which I think sends a message that he may look the other way if somethat nefarious were to occur. 

rainingmaize

December 11th, 2016 at 12:19 AM ^

I've heard from a very credible source (which I'm not a liberty to reveal, judge all you want) that while MSU has mostly recruited clean during Izzo's career, there are some coaches out there who suspect one of his assistants has been recruiting dirty recently.

stephenrjking

December 11th, 2016 at 12:37 AM ^

That's a funny way of putting it. One of his assistants has started to recruit dirty?

If this is suspected or known by "some coaches," there's no way this has gotten past Tom Izzo. I'm as anti-State as the next guy, but Izzo is no idiot. He's not sitting in his office thinking, "Wow, that guy sure can recruit incredibly well against a bunch of teams that are probably cheating, I wonder what his secret it."

If this is true, there may be a guy taking the lead on doing things a "different way," but there's no way that it's being done in spite of the head coach's wishes to the contrary.

trueblueintexas

December 11th, 2016 at 12:53 AM ^

When Coach K retires and people start snooping around he is going to pull the Wooden and claim he thought all those players just wanted to play for him at Duke and didn't know anything about those boosters.
It's really ridiculous you have to cheat one way or the other to win at an elite level in college baketball.

BlueinLansing

December 11th, 2016 at 1:28 AM ^

Kentucky is one, two and three on that list.  Then I'd probably go Kansas, Duke, Louisville and UNLV. 

UNLV's days with Shark the Tark in charge were some of the darkest for college basketball, NCAA never could get him though.