@HighEliteMajor
Frankly, other than the KT phone conversation in which he never mentioned money and can be interpreted in any of 50 different ways, there is really nothing that indicate KU paid or conspired to pay anyone. Evidence presented at the trail indicate that KU was not aware of payment made to the Prestons who actively tried to keep KU in the dark...and Preston never played an official game for KU.
Coach Self contact with Gassnola can be explained very easily since he was a consultant for Adidas and as such in a position to influence players via his AAU contacts and KU does have a contract with Adidas which I am sure includes a tacit expectation by KU that Adidas will help with recruiting.
More importantly, If Preston was worth at least $90K, is there any doubt that Zion Williamson was worth considerable more, particularly when the evidence presented during the FBI trial indicates his family was asking for more money, housing and jobs?
I have seen many reports on the Internet (I have not personally checked them) that Williamson's mother had declared bankruptcy not that long ago and now lives in am $800K home. Did Zion and family suddenly had a change of heart and decided they would forego all the money and Zion would play for Duke with no strings attached? Where are the questions for Duke and Coach K? Why is the MSM not all over this? How about Sean Miller? There was a lot more testimony directly involving him and yet the two schools bearing the brunt of the MSM are KU and Louisville, the two Adidas flagship schools. How about Under Armour and the $60K allegedly paid to Silvio's guardian to go to Maryland?
I am not big on conspiracies but it smells like a preemptive strike by Nike against the competition and using the FBI as its pawn.
