Mo Bamba accepted illegal benefits per his brother
Ugggg...my Longhorn family will be pissed.
...Bamba’s older brother, Ibrahim Johnson, went into detail about a relationship between Mohamed and an outside influencer named Greer Love. He claims that Love supplied Bamba with gifts (TV, $200 a week, vacations, and others are mentioned specifically) in order to be in his inner-circle once he becomes a pro. He also states that Bamba “will not play college basketball this year” and that he has already reported him to the NCAA and will speak with them. He makes it clear in a comment to his video that no money came from the University of Texas. This is an important point, as this saves the school from repercussions, though not necessarily saving Bamba’s eligibility.
Note that there is some explicit language in Johnson’s video, which you can watch here.
At around the 17:30 mark of the video, he says that the NCAA contacted his brother and that Bamba told them Love does the same for other players, which would essentially be Bamba admitting to the allegation (of course, if his story is true).
Whether or not this is all true remains to be seen, but the allegations are very detailed and the booster that he describes is exactly who he says he is. Greer Love is the Vice President of Huron Capital, a Michigan based venture capital and private equity organization.
Love is also a University of Michigan alum. It may just be a coincidence that Bamba, a consensus top 5 recruit, had the Wolverines on his final list. Regardless, it is an interesting detail in hindsight.
Unrelated to ball, but it's funny that this guy is financial adviser to the mayor of Detroit. Probably trying to get in on that corrupt organization as well as college basketball.
Not sure that it's unrelated to ball:
http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/25/detroit-city-council-dunks-on-taxpaye…
Para ballar con Mo Bamba,
tu necessita un poco dinero
para mi, para ti, y arriba y arriba
too good not to post the whole set of lyrics. and for those too young to remember, ~ 1986 a movie came out about a 50's rock star named richie valenz, and his famous song was called the 'la bamba'. rough translation: in order to dance la bamba one needs a little grace, a little grace for me and for you, and higher and higher. for you i will be (x2). second verse 'i'm not a fisherman (x2), i am the captain. anyway, a catchy tune.
Para bailar La Bamba
Para bailar La Bamba
Se necesita una poca de gracia
Una poca de gracia
Para mi, para ti, ay arriba, ay arriba
Ay, arriba arriba
Por ti sere, por ti sere, por ti sere
Yo no soy marinero
Yo no soy marinero, soy capitan
Soy capitan, soy capitan
Bamba, bamba
Bamba, bamba
Bamba, bamba, bam
Valens died along with Buddy Holly and J.P. Richardson (a/k/a The Big Bopper) in a plane crash, immortalized in Don McLean's The Day The Music Died. Waylon Jennings was supposed to be on the plane (he played bass at the time for Holly!) but gave up his seat for the flu-ridden Richardson. Richardson was probably the biggest name at the time - his song Chantilly Lace somehow putting him ahead of the unbelievably talented Holly in the minds of teens at the time.
The group crashed flying a Beechcraft Bonanza (I believe a V-Tail), a fairly well-know "doctor killer" because it can be squirrely to fly.
The more you know ...
funny, to me Ritchie Valens is Lou Diamond Phillips. Whenever I see a video of actual Valens singing a song I am like why is that guy singing a Ritchie Valens song?
It's like when I see videos of the actual General Patton.
"Who's the old guy?"
Because of his guitar chops, a common hot take a few years ago was that Valens was "the" musical genius of the three.
While I like Valens's music, I think that's bushwa - Buddy Holly was an amazing songwriter, singer, and performer with a catalogue of which a 60 year-old musician would rightly be proud. He helped bridge the country crowd into Rock and Roll (sort of a later counterpoint to Little Richard), helping turn Rock and Roll into the most widely loved form of music in America and much of the Western World for decades.
It's intriguing to think of what Valens could have done had he lived longer, but the Holly legacy? Holy shit, he could write a song.
When you look at all the many legendary groups that have said they were profoundly influenced by Buddy Holly's music . . . there is no question about his musical genius.
Despite his all-too-limited time on the scene, he was a catalyst for much of what we know as rock and roll now.
Love hurts
Love scars
Love wounds and marks . . .
Love is a battle field.
...is all you need.
Love bites, love bleeds
It's bringin' me to my knees
Love lives, love dies
It's no surprise
Love begs, love pleads
It's what I need
What part of the game is that?
It's the little gold ball with wings that's wicked fast and hard to catch - but you win the game when you do.
What about this Long fellow?
Not worried.
This is one area where John Beilein plays great defense.
with Bamba since the 4th grade that would be before Bamba became a recruit.
in the 4th grade? Or did he know him back then and rekindled the relationship after Bamba was a star in HS? Either way, if you only started giving him cash and gifts recently, I think that runs afoul of NCAA rules.
Long story short...22 minutes later.
Not gonna lie, compared to all the depressing shit going on at MSU, this is some off-season drama I can get behind. I doubt anything happens, but it has the potential to be entertaining.
Your ears burning? Because somebody asked about you (Where's WD been?) in the middle of a thread and that almost derailed the thread into a where is WD thread? It was about a week and a half ago.
This is the first time I have seen you in a very long time and personally I don't care who you voted for, your still alright by me. I have always enjoyed your posts on MGoBlog and I believe your input would be missed if you stopped all together. Thanx and as always Go Blue!
get $200 a week, a TV, and maybe a couple vacations. I'm sorry but I have a really hard time getting behind the NCAA on this one. I totally understand why the NCAA would rather focus on this than giving Rick Pitino a slap on the wrist for allowing his coaches to buy prostitutes for underage kids, looking the other way while UNC commits blatant amounts of academic fraud, and Baylor basically gets off scot-free for allowing a dangerous culture to fester and hurt so many women, and commit so many heinous acts. Sure, the coach is done, and the AD moved to Liberty. Let's nail the kid for a TV and tickets to Cabo.
There are plenty of pro teams for you to root for. Dunno why you, and those like you, want to ruin college sports because you hate the idea of amateurism. Just move on to somewhere where it does not matter.
Because it's already ruined.
It's just a farcical mix of "pro" college teams perfectly OK with that (SEC says Hi!), and a handful of college teams swimming against the stream trying to keep the idea of amateurism somewhat intact.
It's not working. And nobody in charge really cares anyway.
So end the charade.
and before you bring up the "Europe" argument, I highly doubt that you would have been mature enough to move halfway across the world, apart from your family and friends for 9 months at 17-18 years old. The NCAA is a fucking crock of shit. I don't give a fuck who gets paid, I root for the University of Michigan, not amateurism.
look, i get it. the ncaa is silly and stupid. very, very few people would miss it if it went away entirely. you want to light it on fire, i'll be there with matches.
but it's pretty simple - if you want to play college basketball, you don't get to just say, "the idea of amateurism is a sham and the rules are completely stupid," disregard those completely stupid rules, and play anyway.
many of us here like to bitch about the sec's constant rule-breaking in football, but we also don't generally want to get down in the mud with them. "win the right way" etc. i really don't see how this is any different.
I thought that it was ok to do stuff like this for a kid if you knew him before he was in the 6th grade. Like buying your daughters friend a birthday present or taking your daughters friend on a family vacation.
they were a recruitable (or recruited) athlete.
Pretty sure it doesn't mean just any relationship from the past. If he was giving Bamba gifts and cash since he was his 4th grade teacher, that should be okay with the NCAA. There might have been other grounds for concern with that, obviously. If the gifts start only after he's a highly sought after recruit, that's another story.
If a bunch of kids are involved. I don't think the NCAA will spend very much time investigating this. This is a can of worms the NCAA is better off not opening.
His brother's comments are out there and they can't ignore them. That doesn't mean they have to go digging for everyone else that might be involved. Especially since the school hasn't been implicated, they can easily just deal with Bamba's impermissible benefits.
If the Ed Martin case didn't involve casting a wider net, there's no reason this will.
You are correct. Unless the Police or FBI start to investigate the company he works for. I'm just tired of people always trying to drag Michigan through the mud.