The college basketball world was rocked Tuesday morning when the United States Department of Justice announced ten people had been arrested in connection with fraud and corruption in college basketball. Among the ten is former South Carolina assistant Lamont Evans.
Evans was an assistant to Frank Martin at South Carolina from 2012-2016, and before that at Kansas State from 2011-2012. In April 2016, Evans left South Carolina to join the staff of Brad Underwood, another former Martin assistant, at Oklahoma State. When Underwood left for Illinois after last season, Evans was retained by new head coach and former South Carolina player Mike Boynton.
Evans is facing multiple charges related to bribery, wire fraud, and conspiracy. He is accused of accepting bribes from three men in exchange for steering players towards them for personal management, including financial advisement.
South Carolina is not specifically named in the 59-page complaint, but is clearly “University-2,” identified as a “public research university located in South Carolina. With over approximately 30,000 students” that “fields approximately 19 varsity sports” that is referred to repeatedly in the complaint. It is also where Evans is accused of initially hatching his scheme. Similarly, no players are named in the complaint, but two from South Carolina are mentioned. “Player 3” is an NBA prospect that the group is conspiring to influence. “Player 2” is identified only as a sophomore on the 2016-17 South Carolina team. Martin is not mentioned at all.
Evans is accused of meeting with two conspirators, Christian Dawkins and Munish Sood, and a cooperating witness, on March 3, 2016 in Columbia at “a restaurant in the vicinity of University-2’s campus” to arrange bribe payments. The meeting was recorded by the cooperating witness. At that meeting they began discussing Player-3 and the access to him that Evans could provide.
Evans was named to the Oklahoma State staff a month later, on April 4. The bulk of the accusations cover Evans’ time at Oklahoma State. During that time, he is accused of continuing to accept bribes.
In a press conference Tuesday, Joon H. Kim, the Acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, detailed two separate investigations involving more than 100 pages of indictments that led to the arrests. Evans was involved in an investigation into bribes from personal managers to influence players to sign with them. The other investigation was into bribes from shoe companies to players and coaches to influence players to sign with certain schools. Nobody was named, but the dots are easy to connect.
“We haven’t named the company or any particular school,” Kim said. “That being said, the Internet’s an amazing thing. You search these names and you see where they work.”
The biggest name involved is James Gatto, a high-ranking executive at adidas. He is accused of paying a coach to pay a player to sign with his school. None are named, but speculation involves Brian Bowen, who signed with Louisville.
Neither Martin nor South Carolina is accused of any wrongdoing; however, Kim said the investigation is ongoing, with additional interviews forthcoming. Plus, the NCAA may still launch its own investigation.
“We have reached out to the NCAA,” Kim said. “Until today we don’t believe they were aware of this investigation.”
So far, there has been no comment from the NCAA. Oklahoma State did release a statement regarding Evans. It read:
"We were surprised to learn this morning of potential actions against one of our assistant basketball coaches by federal officials. We are reviewing and investigating the allegations. We are cooperating fully with officials. Let it be clear we take very seriously the high standards of conduct expected in our athletic department. We will not tolerate any deviation from those standards."
Update:
South Carolina released a statement Tuesday afternoon:
The University is aware that former assistant men's basketball coach Lamont Evans has been charged by federal prosecutors and learned of the charge from a press release issued by the Department of Justice. Evans coached at USC from 2012 until April 2016. These are serious accusations that are not consistent with University of South Carolina values. Behavior like this will not be tolerated in our programs. Of course, we will cooperate with investigators and we look forward to justice being done in this case. Because this is an ongoing criminal matter, we will have no further comment.