FBI...here we go



  • My dislike for Wolken greatly predates today btw



  • Kcmatt7 said:

    @BeddieKU23 I think Bill just recruits who he likes, period. And has faith in his staff that they won’t do anything shady so that nothing falls back on them regardless of how idiotic parents and family can be.

    Preston had a lot of well known issues without his family being involved. Bouncing high schools, character flags, academics to name a few. We truly bent down to get him to play here. The reward has been what?

    I guess my point is we recruit some high level character players that seem to reflect the character of our coach. When we recruit the Preston’s of the world I don’t understand the logic.



  • @BShark Oh I know.



  • If Preston doesn’t wreck the car does he play?



  • BigBad said:

    If Preston doesn’t wreck the car does he play?

    I believe so, he also had a curfew issue but that was just a 1 game thing right?



  • @BigBad I think probably. Compliance probably doesn’t even take a look at it unless something happens and they have to cover their asses. Like a police report where a Charger is crashed and it not belonging to Billy himself.



  • BeddieKU23 said:

    Kcmatt7 said:

    @BeddieKU23 I think Bill just recruits who he likes, period. And has faith in his staff that they won’t do anything shady so that nothing falls back on them regardless of how idiotic parents and family can be.

    Preston had a lot of well known issues without his family being involved. Bouncing high schools, character flags, academics to name a few. We truly bent down to get him to play here. The reward has been what?

    I guess my point is we recruit some high level character players that seem to reflect the character of our coach. When we recruit the Preston’s of the world I don’t understand the logic.

    Desperation.



  • Kcmatt7 said:

    @BigBad Compliance probably doesn’t even take a look at it unless something happens

    So if a basketball playing freshman shows up in a brand new Mercedes Benz does it get “looked at”?



  • BigBad said:

    Kcmatt7 said:

    @BigBad Compliance probably doesn’t even take a look at it unless something happens

    So if a basketball playing freshman shows up in a brand new Mercedes Benz does it get “looked at”?

    Winks and nods



  • @BShark

    Very true. We survived without.

    At least since Preston, KU has signed high character players (that we know of)



  • Gassnola testified that he paid $2,500 to Silvio De Sousa’s guardian and that he became aware that a University of Maryland booster was providing $60,000 to De Sousa’s guardian, Fenny Falmagne. Gassnola was set on trying to pay $20,000 to Falmagne — then the FBI case went public.

    — Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) October 11, 2018 Gassnola recruited De Sousa to play at Kansas but did NOT pay the $20,000.

    Relationship began after KU asst Kurtis Townsend asked Gassnola to connect Falmagne with Adidas, as Falmagne was looking for the Angolan Natl Team to get product/gear from Adidas.

    — Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) October 11, 2018 Gassnola said he had a “brief, brief conversation” with Bill Swf about this but said he kept payments to De Sousa’s guardian secret from Self and Townsend.

    — Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) October 11, 2018



  • Preston’s eligibility was in question at Kansas first because of a car mishap. The car was a Dodge Charger that the defense said belonged to Preston’s late grandmother. Kansas accepted the car situation but was pressing Preston’s mother about if she received money elsewhere. — Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander)

    That is good news and they obviously didnt believe her.



  • BShark said:

    My dislike for Wolken greatly predates today btw

    Absolutely is a turd bucket



  • So we officially learn the car Billy Preston had/crashed was in his gradmother’s name who passed away in Florida.

    Remember that daily fiasco trying to figure out who owned the car etc.

    Preston’s momma a real piece of work. Glad KU saw through her



  • calm down and let this stuff play out. When it’s all said and done Kansas will be pretty much cleared of any real wrongdoing and will probably just get a slap on the wrist the dude on the stand today admitted he never told the university about whatever he was doing behind the scenes. And ultimately the FBI can’t provide an actual paper trail of the University or the staff discussing payments you cant assume that any of that took place at least until this point. Furthermore I think schools like Louisville and Arizona are going to get hammered because they were a lot more sloppy with how they conducted business we will be fine.



  • https://twitter.com/danwetzel/status/1050482276591685633?s=21

    Sounds like the afternoon session was a waste of time





  • Alledgedly Diamond Stone’s High School coach was seeking $150,000 in order to recruit him for Adidas. Gassnola said Adidas did not pursue such a high number. Stone play at Maryland.



  • Woodrow said:

    https://twitter.com/mattnorlander/status/1050482899886252032?s=21

    Was this though

    Yikes. I hate that it’s not Nike and not football. This sucks!



  • BShark said:

    Woodrow said:

    Dan Wolken from the USA Today is going in on Self. I guess I fail to understand why… Seems to me Self and KU so far look fine.

    Wolken is a turd

    I haven’t seen anything other than a sassy twitter post. What’s he doing?



  • @KirkIsMyHinrich I’m saying in general. He got miffed like a little beyotch last year when Self gave him the cold shoulder in Chicago among other things.







  • matt norlander @mattnorlander 14m poring through notes, there also this: texts retrieved in this case have billy preston"s mother texting preston and giving directions to her son about how to obstruct ku;s investigation if and wgen they ask preston who t.j. gassnola is.



  • I really don’t think anything today worries me to this point. People are saying KT was involved because with Gassnola but Gassnola was a AAU coach. Which I’m sure most D1 staffs have contacts with. If anything SDS only supposedly getting 2500 dollars looks better than 20k or 60k that was alleged, especially if he paid back Maryland or didnt take their money. Selby basically got 1500 from AAU coach and had to sit the first 9 games so him missing the first half of the season could be a worthy punishment if they can even prove that he got anything. @JAYHAWKFAN214 Interesting that Billy was trying to play us, no wonder his attitude was so good according to HCBS, he knew he screw up lol.



  • Nolander’s tweet about how Preston received the money after attending KU is interesting. But it certainly sounds like everyone is adamantly saying Self and staff were not in the know, so I guess it doesn’t matter one way or the other.



  • Kcmatt7 said:

    Nolander’s tweet about how Preston received the money after attending KU is interesting. But it certainly sounds like everyone is adamantly saying Self and staff were not in the know, so I guess it doesn’t matter one way or the other.

    Well I mean Billy got a text from his mom about hiding information from KU. So far so good.





  • So what does this trial mean for KU and the big Adidas contract? Obviously Nike is dirty is too but doesn’t look like anyone cares.



  • Preston never suited up for KU. You all know that. What ever comes out of this trial against Preston and his fam is really not KU’s concern, or ours. Coach Self held him out of games on purpose.

    Now, Silvio on the other hand. Self let him play. Now, THAT is what I am worried about. But, I also trust Coach Self. He would not have let Silvio play if he thought for one second that he wasn’t eligible or that it would hurt the KU program some how.



  • Blurb on the Spanish Pro Team talk that popped up about De Sousa. Looks like that issue has already been cleared by KU & NCAA. Explains why it took so long to get his amateurism cleared

    Also Wednesday, while a KU compliance director took the witness stand, he was asked by a defense attorney about De Sousa at one point signing a contract with a pro team in Spain. But a U.S. assistant district attorney told the court that KU obtained NCAA clearance after including evidence from handwriting experts who could not conclude the signature on that contract and another with a sports agent was not De Sousa’s.



  • @BigBad Thank God Billy sucks as a driver!



  • Wetzel’s latest article on the trial doesn’t make us sound very good.



  • wissox said:

    Wetzel’s latest article on the trial doesn’t make us sound very good.

    A lot better then what Pat Forde would have wrote



  • Wetzel has seemed pretty unbiased through the process. No issues with anything he wrote. If we have to give up games because of De Sousa, it will suck but it is what it is. Crappy way to end the streak. But it would almost be poetic. For years we all talked about the pressure of the streak. If we lost it this way instead of actually losing it, seems like it could almost be a good thing. Now the focus can be winning another NC. And no team had to go through the embarrassment of blowing the streak.



  • @Lulufulu Self let SDS play because he was CLEARED by the NCAA.



  • @Woodrow I still think games will be taken away from KU if Fenny can’t prove he didn’t take more than the $2,500



  • Shouldn’t burden of proof be on him being given the money?



  • @Kcmatt7 I don’t. The NCAA cleared him. Worse case scenario he is ineligible this year or forever. My best guess is he is suspended for 5-9 games.



  • @Woodrow I think that is probably the most likely scenario as well.

    @BShark At this point, I think the NCAA can probably put the burden on Fenny. This isn’t a criminal trial. This isn’t innocent until proven guilty at this point either. They have legit reasons to ask Fenny to prove he didn’t take any money.



  • I have followed this pretty closely but I don’t recall there being a money trail proving Fenny took anything. He claims he didn’t ( obviously). To suspend him I would think they would have to have some sort of paper trail of the deposits.

    His situation is totally different it seems than Billy’s. There is a trail , text messages , etc…



  • Yeah idk, what a mess. I am slightly more hopeful Silvio plays though. We will see what shakes out during the rest of the trial.



  • @Woodrow I mean having a credible source, under oath, say he gave Fenny money is a pretty good start to a trail. If Fenny didn’t take money, just show your bank accounts. It isn’t that hard. If he did nothing wrong, just come out and prove it.

    I’d show you mine right now. It’s not impressive and I have nothing to hide.



  • The $2,500 aside, it could be the Maryland fan paid the workout guy directly and there is no paper trail involving the mentor. However, if SDS did train with the coach, there’s still the issue of how that all worked. It couldn’t have been free.



  • @BeddieKU23 Ford is about the worst major sportswriter out there. I really wonder how people like him, or announcers like Dakich have jobs like they do. People nationwide have opinions like this about these guys and Yahoo and ESPN have got to know it.

    @Kcmatt7 I agree, I wasn’t trying to cast shade on Wetzels reporting. He’s really good, deserves a better platform than Yahoo.





  • Coaches saying there are not aware there is a lot of cheating going on in college sports reminds me of

    Coaches are not that naive, I am sure most are generally aware of the cheating going on in college sports but realize it is the reality of the game and choose to not be directly involved and have plausible deniability.

    As far as I can tell, the only thing that affects KU is the $2,500 Silvio’s guardian received for either on-line classes or to repay the Maryland booster. In the big scheme of things it is a minor amount that if repaid (to whom it would be???) it would result in a slap in the wrist and maybe a 2-3 game suspension.

    KU seems to be pretty much in the clear vis-à-vis Preston since all the clowns involved actively worked to keep KU in the dark and KU acted prudently by holding him as soon as it had a suspicion of wrong doing and he did not play a single game for KU.







  • @Woodrow

    When a school signs with an apparel firm for sponsorship there is an implicit understanding that it will help steer prospects to the school and I am sure coaches from Nike sponsored programs call Nike as well when it helps with a prospect. There is nothing to indicate or even imply that KU knew Adidas was doing anything illegal which in Silvio’s case amounted to all of $2,500.


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