OT: NCAA takes aim at improper influence of agents, AAU coaches

[cpawstoney]

Here's an interesting article exploring some of the shenanigans that go with recruiting. I started reading it because it starts out with the UCF suspension, but it also references Williams, Calipari, Izzo and Huggins. It's lengthy, but worth the read.

Over the last five to 10 years, the increased presence of agents and other third parties has clouded the basketball recruiting landscape, creating an environment in which individuals leverage college coaches via sophisticated money-funneling schemes — frequently in the form of donations to summer-league AAU teams — in return for increased access to prospects. College coaches who resist the pressure often lose out on the best prospects.

North Carolina coach Roy Williams, who applauded the NCAA's efforts, recently told USA TODAY Sports: "The agent involvement [in recruiting] is much, much more than it has ever been. In the last five years, it has just gone off the charts. There is no question that some of these parts outside the actual game itself have really made the coaching profession not nearly as much fun as it used to be."

Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo said there is "no question" that agents' ties to AAU summer-league teams have become more common, adding that he "absolutely" has lost players because he refused to cheat.

"A lot of people have lost players," Izzo said. "And I am not saying that cheating is 80 percent of the game. It's probably 20 percent. But it's probably 70 percent of the top 20 percent [of player recruitments]. College basketball is a business. This [recruiting] is a business now because it leads to ours."

West Virginia Coach Bob Huggins has said that, while at Kansas State, he was hesitant to continue to recruit O.J. Mayo because the situation had become a "circus," involving, among other peripheral individuals, a Los Angeles-based event organizer named Rodney Guillory, who had established ties to a Las Vegas-based sports agency. Mayo signed with USC, which in 2010 acknowledged he received improper benefits and self-imposed sanctions that included a postseason ban and vacating its victories for the 2007-08 season.

In general, Huggins said there is little the NCAA can do to combat the problem, adding, "It's America. People want to make money. If there's a way to make money, people will find a way to make money. That's the way it is."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/colle...nts/56636864/1