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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, and welcome to the Tuesday Morning Quickies.
Today, I want to briefly discuss the FBI investigation into college basketball and the second trial that is currently underway in New York. The second week of the corruption and bribery trial has included strong evidence and witness testimony of college basketball coaches and assistants at major universities participating in a pay-for-play scheme.
[Former Arizona assistant Emanuel “Book”] Richardson also says on the video about Mississippi State: “If I’m recruiting against Mississippi State, all bets are off” and that in the SEC, some players get “20, 30, 40 grand” when recruited.
and
But the most detailed accounts came via Richardson’s own words – in surreptitious video retrieval, courtesy of the feds – and painted a picture of an Arizona program working beyond the boundaries, rolling into the gutters and operating at extreme-but-allegedly-common levels to get players.
None of this looks good for Arizona, (or for LSU and Will Wade, either). In fact, it looks really, really bad. What the NCAA might do if the jury convicts on all counts is anybody’s guess, but for me, I’m happy it’s those other Wildcats facing this and not the ones I pull for.
Plus, I’d hate to be Sean Miller right about now…
Sports Illustrated’s Michael McCann (my go-to source for sports legal analysis) has more.
Tweet of the Morning
“I have 2 goals next year....one is to win a state championship and the second is to help get the best recruiting class in UK Football history”
— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) April 29, 2019
UK commit John Young on KSR
Sweet. Plus:
Crowd watching Omaha Beach get his bath this morning at Churchill Downs. #KyDerby pic.twitter.com/qCQa5fgs5e
— John Clay (@johnclayiv) April 30, 2019
Derby is in the air, Big Blue Nation!
Your Quickies:
Kentucky football
- Yahtzee: Andru Phillips commits to Kentucky. He is a 3-star cornerback out of South Carolina.
- Lonnie Johnson’s path to the NFL had some twists and turns.
Kentucky basketball
- 2020 5-star Cade Cunningham says of a 100% UK prediction on 247 Sports’ Crystal Ball, “I don’t know where it came from.”
- Hot, hot 3-point shooting on the Nike circuit from 2020 guard Justin Powell from Louisville Trinity has drawn Kentucky interest.
Other Kentucky sports
- Men’s tennis earns 29th all-time NCAA Tournament bid.
- Women’s tennis earns 6th straight NCAA Tournament bid.
Links posts
The Leach Report: Tuesday Wildcat Links.
College football
College basketball
- The final coaching carousel fallout. The Mark Fox hire is truly a head-scratcher. He’s a fine coach, but Cal seems a surprising place for him to land.
- Texas Tech’s Chris Beard is now the third highest-paid college basketball coach in the country.
- SI gives grades for every college basketball major conference team. I think I agree with Kentucky’s grade, but not so sure about Tennessee. I had to laugh at Duke’s grade, though.
Other sports news
- UNC finds a replacement for women’s basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell, and it’s Princeton’s Courtney Banghart.
Other news
- NASA reviews plans to defend Earth from an asteroid strike. Good.
- Physicists set new record of quantum memory efficiency. Quantum computing, which is all the talk, is a long way from being a game-changing reality.
- Pedigree is not destiny when it comes to scholarly success.