The Scheme on HBO

[SilkyJ]

Did anyone catch this documentary on HBO? Believe it dropped a week or two ago. I wouldn’t call it an unbelievable piece, but I didn’t follow the Christian Dawkins case (bribery of college coaches from a couple years ago) particularly closely, so it was at least enlightening on where things ended up on that front and how it all went down.

My takeaways were:

- The FBI / SDNY prosecutors look silly. They accomplished absolutely nothing. A lot of hoopla and fanfare to ‘take down’ Christian Dawkins—who’s an absolute nobody, and a couple assistants no one’s ever heard of. I’m not entirely sure what crimes they committed...and even if there are technical crimes in there, who cares about taking down this guy. Total failure on their part.

- College kids are getting paid all over the place and its just part of the deal these days.

- This is the biggest one for me: How does Sean Miller (and other coaches, like Will Wade) get away with claiming in a press conference that he doesn’t know Christian Dawkins/denying everything, but we can listen to a call between the two of them talking about paying players?

I realize this thread is opening up a whole can of worms, but set aside your thoughts on whether we should pay the players or whatever and focus on just the last point. Sean Miller held a press conference where he claimed he didn’t know Christian Dawkins from Adam and had never paid a player in his life. The entire world, including the NCAA and his bosses can listen to him talk to Christian Dawkins about paying players—and no one is making a deal of this??

Let’s assume he didn’t pay anyone, just for argument’s sake. Shouldn’t he be fired just for lying to everyone about not knowing this guy, when his bosses can listen to wiretaps of him talking to this guy?? How does someone not get fired for lying to their bosses like that??

(I’ll admit I’m not the most up the curve on this particular case, so there’s probably plenty out there I don’t know/didn’t see...and apologies if there’s already a thread here. I searched for one and was surprised to not find one)

[Jeffrey]

- This is the biggest one for me: How does Sean Miller (and other coaches, like Will Wade) get away with claiming in a press conference that he doesn’t know Christian Dawkins/denying everything, but we can listen to a call between the two of them talking about paying players?



Money, power, and privilege! College hoops is a money machine and the NCAA/Universities are making money their top priority.

Wade wasn't even prudent enough to speak in code on the phone. I bet he does now and I'm sure he still pays.

[Jeffrey]

Christian Dawkins—who’s an absolute nobody

I don't agree. IMO, Dawkins is extremely impressive and was somebody in college hoops. I predict Dawkins will one day be very successful wherever he spends his career. I'd hire him!

[weezie]

... College hoops is a money machine and the NCAA/Universities are making money their top priority...

After watching it, I had the impression that it was the tip of the iceberg. Shoe companies, agents and the NBA could be involved but it might take years to uncover and now the pooch is out of the yard.

[Nugget]

Did anyone catch this documentary on HBO? Believe it dropped a week or two ago. I wouldnÂ’t call it an unbelievable piece, but I didnÂ’t follow the Christian Dawkins case (bribery of college coaches from a couple years ago) particularly closely, so it was at least enlightening on where things ended up on that front and how it all went down.

My takeaways were:

- The FBI / SDNY prosecutors look silly. They accomplished absolutely nothing. A lot of hoopla and fanfare to ‘take down’ Christian Dawkins—who’s an absolute nobody, and a couple assistants no one’s ever heard of. I’m not entirely sure what crimes they committed...and even if there are technical crimes in there, who cares about taking down this guy. Total failure on their part.

- College kids are getting paid all over the place and its just part of the deal these days.

- This is the biggest one for me: How does Sean Miller (and other coaches, like Will Wade) get away with claiming in a press conference that he doesnÂ’t know Christian Dawkins/denying everything, but we can listen to a call between the two of them talking about paying players?

I realize this thread is opening up a whole can of worms, but set aside your thoughts on whether we should pay the players or whatever and focus on just the last point. Sean Miller held a press conference where he claimed he didn’t know Christian Dawkins from Adam and had never paid a player in his life. The entire world, including the NCAA and his bosses can listen to him talk to Christian Dawkins about paying players—and no one is making a deal of this??

LetÂ’s assume he didnÂ’t pay anyone, just for argumentÂ’s sake. ShouldnÂ’t he be fired just for lying to everyone about not knowing this guy, when his bosses can listen to wiretaps of him talking to this guy?? How does someone not get fired for lying to their bosses like that??

(IÂ’ll admit IÂ’m not the most up the curve on this particular case, so thereÂ’s probably plenty out there I donÂ’t know/didnÂ’t see...and apologies if thereÂ’s already a thread here. I searched for one and was surprised to not find one)

As someone noted below, I came away from The Scheme with a more favorable impression of Dawkins than before -- he struck me as much more credible than I expected.

With regard to your question about Sean Miller's status, your characterization of the facts is a bit loose and Miller's defense, such as it is, has depended on some very narrowly-crafted lawyerly statements and tactics -- but, much like Bill Self's/Kansas' strategy, it will also depend on rolling the dice that the NCAA can't actually prove the wrongdoing that anyone with half a brain can see went on.

For example, I don't think Miller's statement at the press conference was that he "didn't know Dawkins from Adam" or that he lied "about not knowing this guy." What Miller actually said was:

"Let me be very very clear: I have never discussed with Christian Dawkins paying Deandre Ayton to attend the University of Arizona. In fact, I never even met or spoke to Christian Dawkins until after Deandre publicly announced he was coming to our school. Any reporting to the contrary is inaccurate, false and defamatory. ... IÂ’m outraged by the media statements have been made and the acceptance by many that these statements were true. There was no such conversation. ... I also want you to know that the one time someone suggested to me paying a player to come to the University of Arizona I did not agree to it. It never happened and that player did not come to the University of Arizona," [most people presume he was referring to either Bryan Bowen, although in light of the call between Dawkins and Miller that got played in The Scheme it could have been Nassir Little]

So, his literal statement was he didn't meet or speak to Dawkins "until after [Ayton] publicly announced he was coming to our school," which occurred in Sept. 2016. Thus, the wiretaps in May or June 2017 that showed Dawkins talking to Miller aren't literally inconsistent with Miller's statement.

Also, the reporting by ESPN's Mark Schlabach that triggered Miller's press conference seems to have gotten a key point wrong, which enabled Miller to make the denial in the way he made it. The phone call played in The Scheme about Ayton was between Dawkins and Book Richardson (in which they discussed Miller paying Ayton) and not, as suggested by Schlabach, between Dawkins and Miller.

Therefore, to accept Miller's position requires one to believe that both Richardson and Dawkins were lying or erroneously speculating to one another at a time when neither knew their phone was being tapped and they had no reason to lie. And, Richardson, in particular, having been Miller's right-hand man for a decade, was very well-positioned to know what was true or not true about Ayton.

In short, Miller is betting that Richardson and Ayton won't cooperate with the NCAA and he can dismiss the call between Dawkins and Richardson as speculative and uncorroborated. My own view is that this is absurd -- but Arizona has 15 million reasons to stand on its head to pretend to believe this.

Will Wade is an even more ridiculous case. I don't see how he kept his job for 10 seconds after his call became public.

[UrinalCake]

I don’t think a head coach of a major program is going to get fired for lying about whether or not he knew someone. But it does surprise me that Miller and Wade still have jobs. LSU even doubled down on Wade since the news initially hit, having offered him a contract extension before last season. I think schools feel like there’s no reason to proactively fire their coach, they can wait and leave it to the NCAA to deal with if they want to which they probably won’t.

As for the FBI themselves, I think their plan was to find an agent or two and work their way into the system. They thought if they could catch some assistants then they would flip on their bosses and help reel in the bigger names. I remember when all the arrests happened back in 2017, one of the heads of the FBI team announced something like “if you’ve been cheating, we already know it, so come forward and tell us and we’ll go easier on you.” It was an enormous bluff and the head coaches all called them on it and so the FBI was left with nothing but a couple wannabe agents having to serve a few months jail time (which was preposterous in itself IMO) and a few assistant coaches got fired. Rick Pitino did get fired, but there were other factors that preceded that and honestly I think if Louisville could go back in time they would not have let him go so quickly. He’s now headed back to coaching with zero repercussions.

[Jeffrey]

As for the FBI themselves, I think their plan was to find an agent or two and work their way into the system. They thought if they could catch some assistants then they would flip on their bosses and help reel in the bigger names. I remember when all the arrests happened back in 2017, one of the heads of the FBI team announced something like “if you’ve been cheating, we already know it, so come forward and tell us and we’ll go easier on you.” It was an enormous bluff and the head coaches all called them on it and so the FBI was left with nothing but a couple wannabe agents having to serve a few months jail time (which was preposterous in itself IMO) and a few assistant coaches got fired. Rick Pitino did get fired, but there were other factors that preceded that and honestly I think if Louisville could go back in time they would not have let him go so quickly. He’s now headed back to coaching with zero repercussions.

Strongly disagree. The FBI definitely had a recording of Will Wade boasting that he paid more than the NBA rookie salary. IMO, people of great power shut this down.

[UrinalCake]

Strongly disagree. The FBI definitely had a recording of Will Wade boasting that he paid more than the NBA rookie salary. IMO, people of great power shut this down.

They had dirt on Wade and Miller, but what I mean when I called it a bluff is that the FBI made it sound like they had dirt on everybody, that there were dozens of coaches they had on wiretap and hundreds of players who had been paid. One lead investigator said it would “shake college basketball to the core” or something to that effect. In reality they caught a few assistants, two head coaches (three if you count Gottfried at NC State), and maybe five players have had their names mentioned but none have received any punishment. I think they were hoping that more coaches would come forward as a result of the arrests, but none did.

[SilkyJ]

I don't agree. IMO, Dawkins is extremely impressive and was somebody in college hoops. I predict Dawkins will one day be very successful wherever he spends his career. I'd hire him!

Yes, I actually agree. Kind of impressive how we was able to get to where he was at such a young age, no college, etc.

When I said a nobody -- I meant to the FBI/broader college athletics community. If the FBI was trying to shutdown the 'dirty world of college hoops' getting Christian Dawkins is hardly the KingPin they had to be hoping for...


As someone noted below, I came away from The Scheme with a more favorable impression of Dawkins than before -- he struck me as much more credible than I expected.

With regard to your question about Sean Miller's status, your characterization of the facts is a bit loose and Miller's defense, such as it is, has depended on some very narrowly-crafted lawyerly statements and tactics -- but, much like Bill Self's/Kansas' strategy, it will also depend on rolling the dice that the NCAA can't actually prove the wrongdoing that anyone with half a brain can see went on.

For example, I don't think Miller's statement at the press conference was that he "didn't know Dawkins from Adam" or that he lied "about not knowing this guy." What Miller actually said was:

"Let me be very very clear: I have never discussed with Christian Dawkins paying Deandre Ayton to attend the University of Arizona. In fact, I never even met or spoke to Christian Dawkins until after Deandre publicly announced he was coming to our school. Any reporting to the contrary is inaccurate, false and defamatory. ... IÂ’m outraged by the media statements have been made and the acceptance by many that these statements were true. There was no such conversation. ... I also want you to know that the one time someone suggested to me paying a player to come to the University of Arizona I did not agree to it. It never happened and that player did not come to the University of Arizona," [most people presume he was referring to either Bryan Bowen, although in light of the call between Dawkins and Miller that got played in The Scheme it could have been Nassir Little]

So, his literal statement was he didn't meet or speak to Dawkins "until after [Ayton] publicly announced he was coming to our school," which occurred in Sept. 2016. Thus, the wiretaps in May or June 2017 that showed Dawkins talking to Miller aren't literally inconsistent with Miller's statement.

Also, the reporting by ESPN's Mark Schlabach that triggered Miller's press conference seems to have gotten a key point wrong, which enabled Miller to make the denial in the way he made it. The phone call played in The Scheme about Ayton was between Dawkins and Book Richardson (in which they discussed Miller paying Ayton) and not, as suggested by Schlabach, between Dawkins and Miller.

Therefore, to accept Miller's position requires one to believe that both Richardson and Dawkins were lying or erroneously speculating to one another at a time when neither knew their phone was being tapped and they had no reason to lie. And, Richardson, in particular, having been Miller's right-hand man for a decade, was very well-positioned to know what was true or not true about Ayton.

In short, Miller is betting that Richardson and Ayton won't cooperate with the NCAA and he can dismiss the call between Dawkins and Richardson as speculative and uncorroborated. My own view is that this is absurd -- but Arizona has 15 million reasons to stand on its head to pretend to believe this.


Great correction and thanks for the clarification. I just rewatched the presser and you are 100% correct. I wonder if the Scheme's edited version of the press conference cutoff the part where he said "I've never spoken to Christian Dawkins UNTIL AFTER Ayton stepped foot on campus..." Either that or I just missed it -- equally likely.

[Jeffrey]

Yes, I actually agree. Kind of impressive how we was able to get to where he was at such a young age, no college, etc.

When I said a nobody -- I meant to the FBI/broader college athletics community. If the FBI was trying to shutdown the 'dirty world of college hoops' getting Christian Dawkins is hardly the KingPin they had to be hoping for...


I completely agree... the FBI took down the people all the way at the bottom. The people who lacked money, power, and privilege.

The FBI agent, who probably embezzled money, appeared to be more of a criminal than Christian Dawkins. IMO, Dawkins was entrapped and he repeatedly refused to commit the crime the FBI agent repeatedly directed him to do. I'm also having a hard time buying the Universities were victims, while they made tens of millions and their players were not paid.

In conclusion... Dawkins is a felon, Wade and Miller are innocent, and the Universities are victims. That's total B.S.!

[Jeffrey]

They had dirt on Wade and Miller, but what I mean when I called it a bluff is that the FBI made it sound like they had dirt on everybody, that there were dozens of coaches they had on wiretap and hundreds of players who had been paid. One lead investigator said it would “shake college basketball to the core” or something to that effect. In reality they caught a few assistants, two head coaches (three if you count Gottfried at NC State), and maybe five players have had their names mentioned but none have received any punishment. I think they were hoping that more coaches would come forward as a result of the arrests, but none did.

Thanks for clarifying.... I see your point.

IMO, a lot would have changed if the U.S. Government started by prosecuting Wade. I'm sure there were many incriminating Wade recordings (clearly, he had no fear confessing on the phone), but the one we heard was probably enough to finish Wade. Instead, he will make tens of millions during the remainder of his college coaching career.

[Nugget]

Thanks for clarifying... I see your point.

IMO, a lot would have changed if the U.S. Government started by prosecuting Wade. I'm sure there were many incriminating Wade recordings (clearly, he had no fear confessing on the phone), but the one we heard was probably enough to finish Wade. Instead, he will make tens of millions during the remainder of his college coaching career.

I agree with you that this would have been a much bigger deal if they had charged the head coaches than the assistants. I'm guessing that they reason they didn't is that it might very well have muddled their argument that there was an actual federal crime committed. The hooks for federal jurisdiction were wire/mail fraud based on the players obtaining scholarship money from the schools for which the players who had been paid by Dawkins/Addidas were not technically eligible under NCAA rules -- so, the schools have to be the victim of fraud (i.e., be deemed to have unknowingly provided scholarship money to ineligible players) for there to be any federal crime.

The assistant coaches who knew/participated in the payment scheme are far enough down the chain-of-command that it could be claimed they were not "agents" of the school whose knowledge of the payments was imputed to the school.

I think the Govt. was worried that the head coaches might be deemed sufficiently representative of the schools that if the head coaches knew of the payments that knowledge would be imputed to the school, so there would be no fraud victim. I also think that is why the Govt. fought so hard to keep the head coaches off the stand when Dawkins tried to subpoena them.

But, Dawkins made an interesting tactical choice not to press as aggressively as he could have the argument that the head coaches knew what he was doing. If he had made that argument, I think the judge would have had to let the evidence in. But, Dawkins seemed to have made the decision to try to salvage potential future relationships with the head coaches rather than assert a defense of "how can Arizona or Kansas have been the victim of fraud when the most powerful person at the University had full knowledge."

[Jeffrey]

The hooks for federal jurisdiction were wire/mail fraud based on the players obtaining scholarship money from the schools for which the players who had been paid by Dawkins/Addidas were not technically eligible under NCAA rules -- so, the schools have to be the victim of fraud (i.e., be deemed to have unknowingly provided scholarship money to ineligible players) for there to be any federal crime.


Thank you... now, I understand the layout.

Under that scenario, why isn’t the scholarship recipient the criminal? The player had previously accepted payments, which made them ineligible to play college basketball, and then they defrauded the college by accepting scholarship money.

[Nugget]

Thank you... now, I understand the layout.

Under that scenario, why isn’t the scholarship recipient the criminal? The player had previously accepted payments, which made them ineligible to play college basketball, and then they defrauded the college by accepting scholarship money.

You're right, the player would be, too. But, they just chose not to prosecute them. And Dawkins/the assistants are technically guilty of "conspiracy to commit" or "aiding and abetting" the fraud that was committed by the players in signing their scholarship paperwork.

[Jeffrey]

And Dawkins/the assistants are technically guilty of "conspiracy to commit" or "aiding and abetting" the fraud that was committed by the players in signing their scholarship paperwork.

Thanks for the education!

Then, aren’t the player’s parents (especially, if they also received payment) also guilty of "conspiracy to commit" or "aiding and abetting" the fraud?