Brian Bowen Sr. Confirms Louisville Coaching Staff Gave Him Money As Well As Some Other Key Parties

So today, Brian Bowen Sr., is back on the stand for cross-examination in the first trial in the FBI investigation into college basketball. This was one of the things we were waiting to see. Whether or not Louisville coaching staff gave Bowen any money or if it was just an Adidas thing.

According to Bowen Sr., his family received $1,300 from Kenny Johnson, the former assistant coach at Louisville to help pay rent after moving to a new city. That’s obviously a NCAA violation. The one thing that can save Louisville a bit though?

This appears that Louisville didn’t know about Adidas paying Bowen Sr., as well. That was the larger money payment – $100,000 allegedly. Here’s a key though:

The other interesting part from here is that Kenny Johnson was hired by new La Salle coach Ashley Howard. Johnson was viewed as untouchable by a lot of programs in fear that something like this would come out. Now with Bowen on the stand saying Johnson paid him money, what will Howard and La Salle do?

After that information came out this morning, Bowen was back on the stand this afternoon. I figured I’d just put it all into one blog. This is the new information that came out in the afternoon:

So a lot to take in here. First things first, is that this pay for play goes all the way down to the private school level, not necessarily a surprise. Also those who say this is an AAU/grassroots program just goes to show it’s more than that. This isn’t limited to grassroots or AAU basketball. Second is we now have more schools listed and we now know why a school like DePaul was originally listed. The goal here obviously was for DePaul to hire these guys in an effort to land Bowen. That’s not a new strategy as we see schools hire AAU coaches, high school coaches and family members all the time. This has been going on forever. But, now we know in this instance that they paid to send him to certain high schools and then hired them.

However, that’s all somewhat irrelevant to me. This is the big thing of the case:

That statement right there shows why I was skeptical of this whole investigation. Were NCAA rules broken? Yeah, no doubt about that. But, this is about federal charges against coaches and executives. The case was always going to be to show intent that they were committing fraud against the schools – those listed as the victims here. The fact that they are talking about playing time and going to a school that fits does show that there is no intent of fraud. They were trying to get paid and go play. That’s not a crime. I’ve said it 1,000 times – the court should be looking at whether it’s legal or not to cap what players can make in the free market vs fraud.

As always, I’ll keep this story updated as the trial continues.