Friday morning’s colossal Yahoo! Sports report about the FBI investigation into the sport could forever change college basketball.
College basketball fans woke up Friday to the news of a scandal more far-reaching and rampant than previously believed. Yahoo! Sports acquired federal documents suggesting payment violations were being committed across the sport.
Prior to the season, the crackdown began. Several schools lost assistant coaches to FBI implications, including Arizona, Auburn, and USC. As the scandal grew, coach Rick Pitino was ousted at Louisville, as was his athletic director.
At the time, it seemed like the biggest scandal in recent college hoops.
Yet it doesn’t hold a candle to the explosive report Pat Forde and Pete Thamel published on Friday.
More than 20 schools were implicated as potential violators of NCAA rules. Those schools included almost all of the powerhouse programs in the nation, including Duke, Kentucky, and North Carolina.
There are very few clean hands in the sport, it appears.
The report also named specific players who allegedly received impermissible benefits. Many of those players have since moved on to the more legal and lucrative riches of the NBA, including last year’s first overall pick in the NBA Draft, Markelle Fultz.
Some, however, remain in the college ranks. With such a widespread scandal and such a wide array of allegations, it’s unclear if the NCAA is going to levy suspensions or other discipline against these players and programs, especially as the revenue-generating NCAA Tournament nears.
Here are three of the most prominent players named in the Yahoo! report, and the consequences their implications could bring.