Foreign Trade: Is there a link between booking tours and landing recruits?

scher215

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And the fun continues. Minnesota (as well as UL) is one of the 11 schools mentioned in the article. FWIW, not an NCAA violation it seems and more unsure why we didn't get better recruits out of it.

http://on.si.com/1QLXC7V

Foreign tours are at least a $5 million-a-year business, and one in which approximately 90% of team trips are booked through U.S. companies specializing in athletics travel and/or staging early-season tournaments—the most prominent being Basketball Travelers, of Shoreline, Wash., and Anthony Travel, of Dallas and Ontario, Calif. But Sports Illustrated has found that since at least 2010, between 3% and 7% of this business has shifted to a company registered on a tiny island off the coast of Morocco. According to documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, seven Division I programs—Louisville, Minnesota, N.C. State, Oklahoma State, Troy, UAB and UNC-Greensboro—contracted to spend $944,737 with Promosport & Tours, S.L., on Gran Canaria, a Spanish island. Four more private colleges exempt from public-records requests—Loyola Marymount, Portland, Seton Hall and Valparaiso—have also been Promosport tour clients, potentially raising its D-I business to well more than $1 million over the past six years.

What did these 11 colleges have in common, aside from booking travel with an obscure Spanish company with a rudimentary website? Each school signed one or more recruits who had played at Canarias Basketball Academy, a private, amateur academy that was founded in 2007 by Rob Orellana, a former assistant coach at Cal State-Fullerton, Fairleigh Dickinson and St. Francis. Not only is Canarias Basketball Academy (CBA) registered at the same business address in Gran Canaria as Promosport & Tours, but also one of CBA’s assistant coaches and its operations director, Samuel Sosa Cruz, is listed on contracts as Promosport’s president. Promosport’s college clients added at least 19 former CBA players to their rosters over the last six seasons, and in multiple cases, colleges signed Promosport contracts or took Promosport trips within months of adding former CBA players.
 




This is probably going to be a big deal by media members who love to make things a big deal.

But, recruiting is a slimy game. We all know that. Even the "good guys" have done questionable things. Would prefer not to be on a list like this, but welcome to college basketball in 2016.
 


What's it been, about 6 days? Ghost of Gangelhoff gets bored so easily these days. I'm sure the MSP media will yawn at this and move on the way they would in Madison.
 

My bigger outrage is not with oh this is unethical. It's that we paid money essentially for Konate and Gaston. More so Gaston, Konate may still be okay.
 

My bigger outrage is not with oh this is unethical. It's that we paid money essentially for Konate and Gaston. More so Gaston, Konate may still be okay.

Russ Archambault brought down Clem. Say this for Slick Cal, at least when he cheats it's for Derek Rose and Marcus Camby.
 

Russ Archambault brought down Clem. Say this for Slick Cal, at least when he cheats it's for Derek Rose and Marcus Camby.

Yup. May as well make it worth it.

(And to clarify, it doesn't read like there is any NCAA violations here. Unethical and bad pub for sure. But no sanctions it would seem)
 



Yup. May as well make it worth it.

(And to clarify, it doesn't read like there is any NCAA violations here. Unethical and bad pub for sure. But no sanctions it would seem)

Probably so. But when you're captaining a leaky, damaged ship, it doesn't take an iceberg to sink you.
 



The U can probably play this two ways: Use it as an out with Pitino (and maybe save $7 million) or blame it on MegaToungue/Villa 7. I suspect the later will occur.
 



In the last year:

Megatongue
Jerry Kills retirement
Worst season in MBB history
Morris dismissal
Trio sex tape scandal
And now this.

Am I missing anything?
 

In the last year: Megatongue Jerry Kills retirement Worst season in MBB history Morris dismissal Trio sex tape scandal And now this. Am I missing anything?

Title 9 investigation could be part of mega tongue or separated from his harassment as two different issues as well.

The investigation into U spending (Pitino's dog delivery)

It also makes me all wonder how much of this was NT/Shaka doing at VCU.
 

In the last year:

Megatongue
Jerry Kills retirement
Worst season in MBB history
Morris dismissal
Trio sex tape scandal
And now this.

Am I missing anything?

Zahui B goes to the WNBA, potential Final Four team turns into NIT team.
 


Obviously not good but there is nothing we could get in trouble for correct?
 

Obviously not good but there is nothing we could get in trouble for correct?

At the moment, correct. Seems to be an NCAA rule loophole Rick Pitino probably found and passed on to his son. As mentioned in Twitter, will likely be closed fairly quickly.
 

At the moment, correct. Seems to be an NCAA rule loophole Rick Pitino probably found and passed on to his son. As mentioned in Twitter, will likely be closed fairly quickly.
If this is a loophole, the we should not be involved once it is closed. For now, it seems odd, but if it actually gets us a solid recruit, then it might have been a decent risk.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
 

If this is a loophole, the we should not be involved once it is closed. For now, it seems odd, but if it actually gets us a solid recruit, then it might have been a decent risk. Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

My general feelings as well. And for the record, I'm not an NCAA rules expert- just going off of Twitter and the overall tone of the article. Our compliance director at the time hopefully ensured it was okay (that'd be Beth Goetz if I'm not mistaken btw)

But recruiting is a dirty game. I think most know and acknowledge this. As long as we don't break rules, it's not a huge issue. Although I would prefer we stayed out of this time and/or got better players from it. This is CBB these days. In a business where labor is unpaid, right or wrong, money will likely change hands in some form that may not be pretty.
 

So what is the big deal? If it's not an NCAA violation - then who cares? What's the relationship between schools wearing certain types of shoes and apparel and recruiting? And so on.
 

Are you saying that painting the bedroom of the 6'8" Nigerian 9th grade student I'm hosting maroon and gold with multiple Goldies is wrong?

I better return these University of Minnesota pajamas I just got him.
 

Are you saying that painting the bedroom of the 6'8" Nigerian 9th grade student I'm hosting maroon and gold with multiple Goldies is wrong? I better return these University of Minnesota pajamas I just got him.

Lmao. Well played. Very well played.
 

Even though this practice looks bad and unethical I still don't see it costing Pitino his job this year. Without an AD I just can't see it happening.
 

Our compliance director at the time hopefully ensured it was okay (that'd be Beth Goetz if I'm not mistaken btw)

It's been Jeremiah Carter since October 2015, and it was J.T. Bruett for the 8 years before that.
 

The article also states" The Golden Gopher athletic department ran a $1.5 million deficit in fiscal 2014".
Can that be true?
The trip cost over $200,000 and allegedly was paid for by donors.
 

It's been Jeremiah Carter since October 2015, and it was J.T. Bruett for the 8 years before that.

Got it thanks. Was Goetz the compliance person at Butler? I thought she held that position at some point in her career.
 

Got it thanks. Was Goetz the compliance person at Butler? I thought she held that position at some point in her career.

Yes, she did that both at Butler and at Missouri-St. Louis prior to that.
 





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