Not good at all. Notice the oblique reference to other schools' involvement. Other than the clear link to chokelahoma, this ain't gonna turn out good for anyone. Why would a perennial powerhouse like KU need to stoop to this nonsense?
UT gets away from SMU and aggy with their rampant cheating, and now looks like the Big XII is more of the same. Oh, yeah, UT sent a football player on a private jet to attend his mother's funeral, and a couple of players got some free cowboy boots. I forgot about that. UT is a piker compared to the millions involved with SMU, aggy, and now apparently, KU.
Sounds like he's making a mafia connection.... Pressed for details on who he was delivering the tickets to in the hotel rooms, Freeman refused. “Not going there,” Freeman said. “One of them was about 250 pounds and he [expletive] talked like [he had a New Jersey accent]. You seen Goodfellas? I don’t know who the [expletive] they were. I can honestly tell you, I don’t know who the [expletive] they were. It was ‘This is the room you go to, this is the guy you need to see.’ There were no [expletive] names. The door would open and a guy would be standing there with a gun. You walk in, do the deal and you’re out.”
Very, very, interesting. An incestuous relationship involving large sums of money, coaches, recruits and athletic department ticket office employees. This could blow up big under NCAA scrutiny, or it could amount to business as usual. The "shopping" of basketball players is a dirty, dirty business, and maybe this will lead to an investigation and a clean-up of the practice. Yeah, I know, fat chance. From the article: "Since their alleged involvement with the KU scalping ring, the Pumps’ influence has continued to grow throughout college basketball. Their activities include scalping tickets obtained from coaching staffs, hosting a well-known and lavish annual charity retreat for coaches and athletic directors and operating “ChampSearch” – a consulting firm retained by universities looking to hire new head basketball coaches. Simultaneously, the Pumps finance multiple elite traveling summer basketball teams that showcase recruits, some of whom have ended up with the programs that the Pumps do business with. Roger Morningstar has coached some of those summer traveling teams, one of which included his son, Brady, who committed to Kansas in 2006. Since Jones, Freeman and Roger Morningstar allegedly engaged in scalping tickets through the Pump brothers in 2002, summer traveling teams financed by the Pump brothers have featured at least nine players who went on to play for the Jayhawks. Among them were nationally recruited players Mario Chalmers, David Padgett, Omar Wilkes, Tyrel Reed, Elijah Johnson, Jeff Withey, Travis Releford and Brady Morningstar."
Just like with Calipari, if you have connections, work with, or are around college bball enough then this doesn't surprise you one bit. It's a dirty game and it makes me sick. Until the NCAA does something to reign in the AAU/summer team/traveling team coaches then this stuff will continue. The AAU idiots of the world have too much power and it only attracts more pimps, losers, and hanger-onners when there is large sums of money potentially involved with star recruits. It's the biggest form of prostituion going on today. They pimp these kids out like a high priced call girl and there is always a willing coach waiting to pay the price for that kid's services. I would love to see the NCAA change it's rules to say that players can no longer be recruited thru an AAU coach. That the college has to recruit the player thru his High School coach. There would still be some high school coaches that cheat (see Eric Bledsoe's HS coach) but it would clean up the mess substantially.
