If the murmurs were to be believed, major college basketball had long been a dirty sport inhabited by dirty actors, making it at times seem more similar to "Goodfellas" than "Hoosiers."
Those unsavory elements date back to a point-shaving scandal that engulfed then-national power City College of New York in the early 1950s. They've been lamented and whispered about among the sport's coaches for decades. They've even been portrayed in major motion pictures such as "Blue Chips," a film depicting an over-the-hill coach who paid the families of top recruits with money, houses and tractors in a desperate attempt to stay relevant.
The worst fears and crassest caricatures of that underbelly were realized this week in a series of criminal charges filed by the Department of Justice. The charges, the product of an FBI investigation dating back to 2015, detailed how college coaches were bribed to influence their players to sign with particular financial advisers and managers once they entered the professional ranks and how others, including a high-ranking adidas executive, arranged payments to top players to steer them to certain basketball programs. In all, 10 men, including four assistant coaches and a custom clothier, were indicted.
Tuesday's events were described by some as the day college basketball lost whatever innocence it had left. In truth, the charges that hit the game and many of its participants may affect the sport in an even more jarring and profound way.
College programs have been marred by misconduct for years, whether it was NCAA violations or more serious transgressions that were handled in criminal courts. These scandals often are predictable in nature, with players, assistants or low-level administrators taking the brunt of the blame and punishment while those at the top _ head coaches, athletic directors or university presidents _ remaining largely unscathed.
When those investigations are being conducted by the NCAA, a process Ohio University sport management professor David Ridpath described as "toothless," that's often the result. When they're headed by federal investigators, armed with subpoena power and the ability to set up wiretaps, there is much more bite.
With that, something much closer to the truth is revealed and the ramifications magnify _ heads that wouldn't normally roll suddenly do.
One day after Louisville confirmed it was one of the schools involved in the FBI's investigation, the university placed men's basketball coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich on administrative leave. Pitino, a basketball Hall of Famer and two-time NCAA champion, had been at the center of embarrassing ordeals previously in his tenure. Jurich, who transformed the Cardinals from an afterthought outside of men's basketball into an athletic powerhouse capable of gaining admission into the ACC, had presided over those episodes. In the past, their decorated resumes spared them of a fate many others would have been unable to avoid. This time, with the FBI involved, it wasn't enough.
Whether other schools with a connection to the report _ Arizona, Oklahoma State, Southern California, Miami and, reportedly, South Carolina _ also make such sweeping changes remains to be seen. This is only the start of the fallout, for those schools and the NCAA as a whole.
At a press conference in New York on Tuesday, FBI assistant director Bill Sweeney said the bureau's investigation is ongoing, issuing a warning to coaches and others that, "We have your playbook." A special FBI hotline has been set up to collect new information relevant to the investigation. The possibility remains that those implicated, in an attempt at self-preservation, will cooperate with investigators and give up names. Darren Heitner, a lawyer and writer at Forbes, reported Wednesday that employees of Nike's Elite Youth Basketball League have been subpoenaed by the FBI.
Wednesday night, a basketball administrator at Alabama resigned as part of the FBI investigation.
Regardless of how much the FBI ultimately uncovers, there's immense wreckage that has been left behind in just 36 hours. Amid that rubble, the NCAA has multiple directions in which it can turn.
On one end, it can double down on its amateurism model, perhaps working with the NBA to eliminate so-called "one-and-done" players, who are required to be one year removed from high school to enter the NBA. It also could institute harsher and more consistent penalties for those who cheat.
The organization also could cater to the growing pleas for athletes to receive some kind of compensation. In an economy in which the most valuable commodities are systematically underpaid in relation to market value, a black market littered with back-channel transactions is, in the minds of some, inevitable. So why not allow athletes to capitalize on the value they've created for themselves, whether it's for endorsements or other forms of external income?
"From an NCAA perspective, I think you have to decide whether it's about education or whether it's going to be about elite athlete development, winning and revenue generation," Ridpath said. "Either way you decide to go is fine. We're still going to watch the games. But right now, we're trying to straddle the fence and it never works when you straddle a fence. You have to make a decision."
It's a decision that was brought about by the once-unthinkable prodding of the FBI, leading to a day of reckoning for which many hoped and fewer anticipated. The product of that choice will be a sport that will almost certainly never be the same.
