The issue here appears NOT to be about whether Self and KU and adidas are bending and/or breaking NCAA rules.
I have NEVER read a book about college basketball recruiting that did not say something to the effect that MOST D1 SCHOOL'S BASKETBALL PROGRAMS ENGAGE IN ACTIVITIES RELATED TO RECRUITMENT AND PLAYER ELIGIBILITY THAT BEND AND/OR BREAK SOME OF THE NCAA REGULATIONS.
If I recall correctly, Jay Bilas, commentator, attorney, and former college basketball player at Duke, said in an interview something to the effect that most schools have always had players that were not eligible playing and that many players have long gotten incentivized in various kinds of ways not consistent with the rules.
(Note: Bilas also said that the NCAA wants to use the players BEFORE anyone else gets to use the players and doesn't much care about how players get used after the NCAA is done using them. That was a pretty damning indictment of the motivations of the NCAA even after one takes into account that Bilas said a lot of the NCAA officials are nice persons.)
The question rather is whether Self and KU are bending and/or breaking the rules sharply more than is customary among, say, coaches and schools contracted with NIKE. If Self and KU were, then the FBI would probably be warranted in leaving an impression of Self and KUAD as a compromised coach and a compromised program? But not if not.
Why?
Why shouldn't Self be like the only kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar? Why shouldn't he be singled out and punished? Well, because for the metaphor to fit, Self would appear to be one of nearly 300 plus kids with their hands in the same cookie jar. None of them are in hiding, while Self and KU alone in front of the jar. All 300 plus cookie bandits are right there in plain sight of the FBI, same as they have been in plain sight of the NCAA. If the FBI is going to haul Self and KU in for investigation and leaking, then why not the other 299 cookie bandits too? What gives? Is the FBI understaffed? Does the director of the FBI need KU fans to go out and start helping them by making citizen arrests of the 29? Go figure!
Clearly, if Self were bending and/or breaking the rules sharply more than is customary among, say, coaches and elite schools contracted with NIKE, then we would expect for Self to have had signed 12-15 OADs the seasons when NIKE-UK and NIKE-Duke had 10 and 9 respectively.
But that is not what we have observed. Instead, Self has appeared to have had significantly fewer OADs those seasons, and Self has appeared to have had vastly fewer OADs at the 1 and 5 positions. Self has also appeared to have had to make do with increasing numbers of 4-star players, also.
Clearly, if Self were bending and/or breaking the rules sharply more than is customary among, say, coaches and schools contracted with NIKE, then we would expect for Self to have had 8-10 highly athletic > 39% three point shooters (including one each at the 4 and 5) and ranked between 75 and 100 in a year when NIKE-Villanova had six such players.
But that is not what we have observed.
What we have observed is that Self had 3-4 such highly athletic high percentage three point shooters and none at the 4 or 5 positions.
There is no escaping the following logic: If Self and KU were cheating sharply more than other coaches and teams, he would be getting significantly better and significantly more desirable players than the other coaches and schools.
He hasn't been getting the results that the reputed cheating would probably yield, so something else appears to be driving the investigations of and leaks about Self and KU.
And that brings us back to trying to better understand the role of the Petroshoeco-Agency Complex and the Media-Gaming Complex in all of this.
(Note: as always, I am just a fan and a layman opining about basketball and events surrounding it. I am not qualified to register a legal opinion about what is going on with Self and KU in the face of this investigation. I can only say I remain baffled by what little I have learned about it so far. )
