Miami Basketball: Hurricanes now included in FBI probe
Miami basketball has become the second ACC team to be involved in the FBI corruption probe, this time surrounding a player not even on the team.
There are 351 programs in Division-I basketball. By the end of Sept. 26’s afternoon, we knew of five teams involved: Arizona, Oklahoma State, USC, Auburn, and Louisville. After the arrests of ten individuals, including four assistant coaches, the reaction has been swift.
Louisville has fired Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich. The other assistants have been fired or suspended indefinitely, and any player involved is being held out for eligibility concerns.
On Wednesday, more schools have been put on notice roster regarding the FBI’s fraud and corruption probe. Miami basketball, led by head coach Jim Larranaga, is one of those teams.
Miami’s school president Julio Frank has confirmed that the Department of Justice has included the school in its ongoing investigation. Speculation of Miami’s involvement seems to surround an unidentified staff member of the team and the recruitment of 2018 five-star recruit Nassir Little, who currently has the Hurricanes listed among his final choices.
Little played for an Adidas-based AAU team, which further leads to the rumor. As an aside, everything around Little seems to be dealing with the FBI, so it remains as to whether we’ll see him ever play in college or not.
Larranaga has built a ton of credibility over his college career, dating back to his days at George Mason, where he took the program to its first Final Four. Since coming to Miami in 2011, he has helped lead a resurgence of the basketball program, finishing in the top-tier of the ACC most years.
Unfortunately for him, the amount of skepticism college basketball followers have now is starting to make us wonder how Miami got five-star players like Bruce Brown last year and top recruit Lonnie Walker this year. Larranaga has been more of a developer rather than a recruiter, so with this program, even he may not get the benefit of the doubt.
Depending on the severity of both the school’s involvement, as well as the possible sanctions, this may well be nearing the end of the head coach. Not necessarily because the school would fire him, but at 67 years old he might consider retirement rather than dealing with the aftermath of this.
Either way, we’re still at the beginning stages of all of this and more teams are likely to become involved. But for now, let’s all welcome the Miami Hurricanes to what will be the biggest storyline in college basketball for a while.
Next: ACC power rankings for 2017-18
Busting Brackets will be covering the Hurricanes and any other team along the way, so make sure to come back for what will certainly be more updates to come. This situation has been an incredibly scandal on the national stage in college basketball and it is a mystery how far the investigation will go.