Recapping the Book Richardson fiasco

Tuesday was a long day for Arizona basketball, so we’re here to help you get caught up with all the madness

If you somehow missed it yesterday, Arizona Wildcats assistant coach Book Richardson was arrested by the FBI on charges of bribery, corruption, conspiracy, and fraud, stemming from improper conduct on the recruiting trail.

But plenty of other bad stuff was revealed, and here are the important things you need to know for now:

• The investigation involved three other assistant coaches around college basketball — Auburn’s Chuck Person, Oklahoma State’s Lamont Evans, and USC’s Anthony Bland.
• It also involved former ASM sports agent Christian Dawkins, financial advisor Munish Sood, and Adidas executive Jim Gatto, among others.
• In Richardson’s case, he received $20,000 in bribes from Dawkins and Sood, "some of which (he) appears to have kept for himself and some of which he appears to have provided to at least one prospective high school basketball player,” according to the Department of Justice’s complaint.
• That player is likely Arizona commit Jahvon Quinerly, since the complaint links Richardson’s payment to a point guard who verbally committed to the UA on or about Aug. 9 — Quinerly, a five-star point guard, committed Aug. 8. If true, Quinerly’s future at Arizona (or any other school) is in serious doubt.
• Aside from that, Dawkins and Sood wanted Richardson "to use his influence over the student-athletes he coached to pressure them" to hire Dawkins as their agent and Sood as their financial advisor, according to the complaint.
• The complaint says one current Arizona player received payments from Richardson, and two other current players were implicated in the story as targets for Dawkins to add as clients. However, it is unclear if those two players received payments or not.
• The UA said it found out about the investigation Tuesday morning, and it immediately suspended Richardson, relieving him of all duties. The UA also called Richardson’s involvement “appalling.”
• The NCAA apparently didn’t know about the investigation until Tuesday, too.
• The complaint shows one other Arizona assistant coach, one who no longer coaches at the UA, was involved. Connecting the dots, that likely leads to Joe Pasternack, who left this offseason to become the head coach at UC Santa Barbara.
• Dawkins said in a phone call that he was allowed at Arizona’s practices. NCAA rules prohibit coaches from facilitating contact between players and agents or financial advisors, so that’s a rule violation right there, assuming he wasn’t lying.
• If Dawkins was at practices, that’s presumably not a good omen for Sean Miller, since the UA basketball program is very strict about who can and can’t watch practice. In other words, it’s hard to believe he didn’t know agents were attending his practices.
• That said, no head coaches were implicated in the complaint.
• Interestingly, I found that zero former Arizona players are ASM clients at the moment.
• Former Arizona target Brian Bowen was explicitly named in the complaint for accepting $100,000 from Adidas to commit to Louisville. Bowen’s mom said she didn’t know anything about it.
• Arizona was scheduled to have media day Wednesday, but that has been postponed. The new date is TBA.
• Richardson was released on $50,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 10.
• Despite being uncommitted, Arizona target Nassir Little tweeted (and deleted) that he re-opened his recruitment Tuesday. This hardly seems to be a coincidence, as Jonathan Givony of ESPN/DraftExpress said there’s a “decent chance” Little is involved in the investigation. He was also considering Miami, which the Palm Beach Post said is “potentially” involved in the investigation, and played for an AAU team that was sponsored by Adidas — the same AAU team whose director is currently in jail.
• There was clamoring on Twitter yesterday about Rawle Alkins suffering a foot injury, but that’s not something we can confirm right now.
• Many think this is just the tip of the iceberg of things to come. One national writer called it Armeggedon for college basketball. Buckle up.

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Our full stories can be found here

• Arizona assistant Book Richardson arrested for corruption, taking bribes
• Nassir Little tweets (and deletes) that he’s re-opened his recruitment
• Book Richardson suspended by Arizona amid FBI investigation

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