Chris, you are correct. The Thomas thing was troubling. Bagley's recruitment process always bothered me, heard Zion's landing at Duke was $$ related, etc. However, nobody has more skeletons in the closet than UNC. Dean Smith concocted the biggest collegiate scandal ever(hope some of you Cheaters fans on our board read this).
From si.com March of 2015:
"that was before Rashad McCants, the second-leading scorer on the 2005 national championship basketball team, told ESPN last June that, during his three years in Chapel Hill, he and other players slid by with the illegal benefit of no-show courses, a complicit academic support staff and athletic department—and the “100%” knowledge of coach Roy Williams."
Again, Dean had launched the bogus AFAM Studies program in '93 and it lasted 18 years. Two of Roy's nattys were tainted, and banners should have come down.
OFC
My take on this is that the Thomas thing was strange but I cannot see any Duke coach being a part of this. Perhaps it was some friends of his or maybe an agent helping him, but I can't see the staff knowing this. The Bagley recruitment was only weird because he was able to reclass so quickly, but I don't think it was money related. I just think that Duke was going to allow him to be the center of the offense.
As far as Zion, this one is interesting on a few fronts. For starters, everyone thought he was Adidas and Kansas but then the FBI came sniffing around. The FBI looked into these shoes deals in September (I think) of 2017. If he was looking for money, I'm sure the FBI made everyone be above board, so I don't see how money would have been a factor. If Zion was going to the highest bidder, we have to remember that both Kentucky and UNC with Ol Roy, both ran the entire race. So, if money was being discussed, and his stepdad was shopping for the highest bidder, that would mean Ol Roy knew about this. If it was about Duke paying players, why was there never anything about RJ? He was the top player in the class.
Then Zion commits to Duke in January of 2018 and the "house" thing came up. However, I find it hard to believe that with everyone being their own detectives with cell phones being cameras, etc., that not one picture was taken of Zion's family driving up the driveway, parking in the garage, getting the mail, mowing the lawn, etc. I find that pretty strange that with all of the opposing fans, there wasn't one picture of anything.
Now on to the fact classes. This is one of the more ridiculous things because it was not just fake classes, all colleges have a paper course, but this was a full paper major. I don't know what all colleges do but I bet they don't have paper majors. I don't think that should ever be allowed. There is a proud UNC alum on the coaching staff that is a paper major.
And you can bet your sweet a$$ that Roy knew this. I used to work with a big time UNC fan and he was reading Roy's book many years ago and he told me that in the book, he read, where Roy asked why there was so much clustering of the basketball players to this one major. If he asked that, I'm sure he got the response that Ol Deno set this up to "help" kids and of course, keep them eligible.
There was the leaked grades from Julius Peppers where he was only eligible because of AFAM classes. Then Matt D was defending how smart Peppers was because he could remember all the plays the team used.
Then what about all the UNC players getting cars from our favorite car dealer Fats, or one of their players getting a customized mouth piece, and all the party planning that their crew was doing. PJ Hairston was even suspended because Ol Roy couldn't "pretend" he knew nothing any longer.
It's a looooonnnnnnnnggggggg list of UNC doing UNC things over the past few decades.
northcarolina.forums.rivals.com
