Arizona’s college basketball season is over. But the FBI case that’s led to charges for a former assistant coach and reportedly touched current coach Sean Miller is still unfolding.
What we know about Arizona and the FBI’s college basketball investigation
Here’s how the Wildcats factor into an ongoing probe.
Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
ESPN reported in February that an FBI wiretap revealed a conversation between Miller and Christian Dawkins, a central figure in the FBI’s probe of corruption in college basketball. In the call, Miller and Dawkins reportedly “discussed” a $100,000 payment to freshman center Deandre Ayton when he was a recruit in the class of 2017.
After that report came out, Miller sat out a game, but said in a statement that he’d be vindicated. He returned to the sidelines and coached out the season, which ended in a shocking loss to Buffalo in the first round of NCAA tournament.
Dawkins is a former associate of once-powerful NBA agent Andy Miller at his agency, ASM Sports. The government has reportedly tapped more than 3,000 hours of Dawkins’ phone conversations. Dawkins was a focus of a Yahoo Sports report in February that showed documents purportedly detailing loans and other payments to players and their families.
Arizona has been caught up in the FBI investigation for months.
In September, the feds charged Dawkins with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud itself, and conspiracy to launder money. The government accuses Dawkins of paying bribes to a former Arizona assistant, Book Richardson, in exchange for steering Arizona players to a management company he’d started with another defendant, Munish Sood.
The government accuses Richardson of accepting $20,000 in bribes, including a $15,000 payment from an undercover FBI agent. The government says the goal of the bribe was to get Richardson to steer a five-star point guard to Arizona and, later, to Dawkins and Sood’s business venture. (That point guard did commit to Arizona but later changed his decision to Villanova.)
Richardson faces various fraud charges. He also faces a charge for soliciting bribes as an “agent of a federally funded organization.” Because the University of Arizona does more than $10,000 in business with the government through loans, grants, and other “federal assistance,” the government is prosecuting Richardson (and two other former coaches) under that broad anti-corruption law. He’s also facing a charge for “travel act conspiracy” — basically put, crossing state lines to break the law.
Richardson has pleaded not guilty to six felonies. If he were convicted on all of them, he’d face up to 80 years in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The criminal case involving Richardson, former Oklahoma State assistant Lamont Evans, and former USC assistant Tony Bland, all on similar charges, isn’t close to wrapping up.
Miller hasn’t been charged with a crime. His future is unclear.
A program arranging a payment for a player would be an NCAA violation, which could lead to sanctions including vacated records, postseason bans, or any number of garden-variety NCAA punishments. Whether it would be against the law for a coach to arrange such a payment depends on a host of other factors, and we don’t know those.
Miller has, over the years, turned Arizona into one of the sport’s recruiting powers. The Wildcats load up with blue-chip talent every year, and they win lots. They won the Pac-12 Tournament this year, though their subsequent loss to Buffalo was embarrassing.
Ayton’s college future is also hazy, but it won’t last much longer anyway.
Among the many things we don’t know is what payment, if any, ultimately went to Ayton. Taking money even fractionally as big as $100,000 would cost Ayton his NCAA eligibility, in addition to subjecting Arizona to the NCAA’s wrath going forward.
That probably wouldn’t be a big problem for Ayton, personally, because he’s a star player on his way to the NBA. He’s a near-certain lottery pick in this summer’s draft, and the NBA — unlike the NCAA — doesn’t have a problem with its players getting paid. He averaged about 20 points and 12 rebounds per game in an All-American-caliber freshman season.
The NCAA strikes an outraged tone when it talks about the FBI case, but it’s that organization’s insistence that players not be paid at all that allows college sports’ underground economy to flourish. Fortunately for Ayton, he’ll soon play in a league that doesn’t penalize players for using their own talent to make money.
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