Gonzaga's athletic director doesn't believe Mark Few and Ray Giacoletti's connection to David Salinas — a the founder of a summer basketball program and a suspected Ponzi scheme architect — has anything to do with basketball.
But CBSSports.com is now reporting that the NCAA thinks it might be.
Yesterday, amid reports that Mark Few, head coach of GU's men's basketball team, and Ray Giacoletti, an assistant coach, had jointly invested more than a million dollars with Salinas, GU Athletic Director Mike Roth issued a statement saying the whole thing was tragic, but "not a basketball matter."
The NCAA seems to disagree. CBSSports, who first broke the Salinas story, is now reporting that an investigation is already underway:
"So now the NCAA is trying to determine if the coaches who invested with Salinas gained a recruiting advantage," a source told CBSSports.com. "When was the money invested? When did they get the players? The NCAA is trying to connect the dots and see if they can determine if the coaches who invested gained a recruiting advantage when it came to pursuing Salinas' players."
In a separate report from thedaily.com, former Houston basketball coach Tom Penders said that Salinas had made a "strong, strong implication" that investing with him would be rewarded with access to top recruits in Salinas' program.
Read our original blog here.
