Last week, after the FBI’s college basketball corruption scandal surfaced, Syracuse head coach Dino Babers told his players to look to their left and right.

“None of you guys are getting paid,” SU’s second-year head coach said he told his players. “We’re not paying anybody.”

Babers, who has coached at more than one dozen schools, said Monday morning that “everywhere I’ve been, we’ve been good about that stuff.”

By “stuff,” Babers means about not paying players. The FBI probe includes allegations that representatives from Adidas promised six-figure payments to players’ families for committing to schools sponsored by the company. Other allegations state that coaches steered players to financial advisers.

Assistant coaches at four schools — Arizona, Auburn, Oklahoma State and USC — have been arrested in related schemes. They face charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.

Louisville men’s basketball Rick Pitino is on unpaid administrative leave because of the probe, which states UofL assistants involvement in a scheme to pay a highly rated recruit a $100,000 bribe. University interim President Greg Postel announced Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich had been placed on administrative leave after the basketball program was implicated in the FBI corruption investigation.

“From a basketball standpoint, that stuff is mind-boggling to me,” Babers said.

Postel said Pitino’s status will be determined at a later date. His program is already under NCAA probation for providing prostitutes for recruits. He said he did not know anything about either scandal.

It raises questions on whether universities will become more scrutinizing of their coaches in both basketball and football, and whether athletic departments will employ more compliance officers to hold coaches accountable.

The repercussions are a “reputational scare for everybody,” ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said. There’s no reason to believe schools like Syracuse are involved, he said, though many programs may be more careful in how they monitor their teams and coaches. Still, it won’t stop more programs from breaking the rules.

“This is just the latest scandal we’ve had,” Bilas said, “and it won’t be the last.”

Bilas said the scandal will have little to no impact on Syracuse men’s basketball recruiting, as the probe impacts only a handful of players. Dick Vitale, also an analyst at ESPN, said SU’s recruiting prospects are “absolutely improved.”

Last week, UofL basketball lost a pair of five-star recruits in Anfernee Simons and Courtney Ramey. Sunday, junior college All-American running back Greg Bell decommitted from UofL.

“I don’t think it’s over,” Vitale said. “I think it’s just beginning. They’re not going to play games. I hope some of this gets cleaned up. We need someone to be in charge.

“It think this is going to make every school take a step of caution in every way possible.”

Additional note from Babers’ Monday press conference:

• The FBI probe renews the debate over college athlete compensation. Babers said a football scholarship “is more than enough for compensation, based on what I did for the game and how it changed my life.”

Published on October 2, 2017 at 2:07 pm

Contact Matthew: mguti100@syr.edu | @MatthewGut21