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Last week’s Yahoo Sports report sent more shockwaves rippling through college basketball, and the South Carolina Gamecocks were once again caught up in the wash: This time, former star guard PJ Dozier was named for allegedly accepting $6,115 from an agent while he was a Gamecock, and current transfer Brian Bowen allegedly received $7,000 as a Louisville recruit. South Carolina assistant coach Chuck Martin, who had recruited Bowen while at his previous stop, Indiana, was somewhat implicated as well in an ASM Sports company email.
Gamecocks head coach Frank Martin met with the media this morning and defended both Dozier and his assistant, describing Dozier as “crushed” about his inclusion in the report:
Martin says he read the same report, saw Dozier's name in the report, but not in the ledgers that were printed. "PJ and his family are unbelievable. I don't know" about dealings.
— David Cloninger (@DCPandC) February 26, 2018
Martin went on to say he has “zero” involvement with agents, explaining that assistant coaches usually handle those conversations. As expected, he had words of support for Chuck Martin:
Martin giving some insight. Assistants coaches end up talking to agents.
— GoGamecocks (@gogamecocks) February 26, 2018
Speaking highly of Chuck Martin. "Chuck's a good man. Chuck's not in the middle of this."
Martin also defended his program’s integrity, bringing up last year’s dream season and insisting that it’s safe:
Martin: We went to the Final Four last year. And I'm telling you, we're clean.
— David Cloninger (@DCPandC) February 26, 2018
Martin bemoaned the general state of college basketball recruiting, though he pointed out his sport isn’t the only one with issues in that respect. He also highlighted the inherent difficulty of supervising what players do in their free time:
Martin asking how he should control if someone comes into town in the middle of May and talks to a player?
— GoGamecocks (@gogamecocks) February 26, 2018
I think Martin’s point about the trickiness of NCAA enforcement is a good one, and he also mentioned that players should be able to profit off their likeness, which I feel is another reasonable opinion. As for the rest, it’s not surprising that he would defend Dozier and Chuck Martin, and certainly I would like to believe they indeed kept their noses clean. But unfortunately, we’re just going to have to keeping waiting and see where the chips fall.