Kansas basketball: Observing bribery scandal from a distance
By Stan Unruh
Kansas basketball fans are watching the news of the college basketball bribery scandal and holding their breath. This story grows bigger daily.
The fraud and bribery scandal that rocked college basketball this week is not the biggest story of the week. It is probably the biggest sports story of the year. When college basketball grabs most of the headlines in the middle of college football season, you know it is huge. I’ve talked to some Kansas basketball fans afraid to look at social media or read online news. This story seems to get bigger every day and is not going away anytime soon.
When news first broke Tuesday that linked Adidas and NCAA basketball coaches to a bribery scandal I knew it was huge. I also knew the University of Kansas just extended their agreement with Adidas. It is a 14-year agreement worth millions of dollars.
KU announced the news last week within the ‘Raise the Chant’ campaign. Fraud, FBI, bribes and one of the high-profile Adidas officials implicated tweeted about the Jayhawk agreement just hours before his arrest. The twitter account is now deleted.
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I did not realize Kansas is the only Adidas school in the Big 12. There are eight Nike schools. According to ESPN Nike is now also included in the investigation. The initial Justice Department news conference on the scandal indicated the information released is just the “tip of the iceberg.” That’s not surprising. On the other hand, the drip, drip of information coming out hourly is nauseating.
The University of Kansas is monitoring the situation. I’m sure they are watching this as closely as possible. As a matter of fact, there is no reason to expect anything negative for Jayhawks. It is not fun to watch the news and see the mud that is part of college basketball.