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Unfolding of Darius Cobb’s involvement with Kansas’ Ben McLemore

Michigan v Kansas

ARLINGTON, TX - MARCH 29: Ben McLemore #23 of the Kansas Jayhawks reacts early in the second half against the Michigan Wolverines during the South Regional Semifinal round of the 2013 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Dallas Cowboys Stadium on March 29, 2013 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

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Last night, Eric Prisbell of USA Today released a story documenting how Darius Cobb, Ben McLemore’s former AAU coach, accepted two $5,000 payments and three paid trips to Los Angeles from Rodney Blackstock in an effort to steer the talented Kansas freshman to sports agents and financial advisers hoping to represent him if and when he declared for the NBA Draft. McLemore declared on April 9th, and projects to be a Top 5 pick in June’s Draft.

Prisbell’s article contains a wealth of information, and at the time of its release it was hard to process exactly what this all adds up to for the University of Kansas and Ben McLemore. Much of this story continues to unfold, but John Infante offered some early thoughts on it earlier today. What is of particular interest are the parallels between Ben McLemore and the situation with Cam Newton at Auburn a few years ago:

Under Bylaw 12.02.1, the NCAA’s new and expansive definition of an agent (a.k.a. the Cam Newton rule), Blackstock almost certain can be classified as one. In fact, Cobb might fall in the category as well, which includes anyone who:

Seeks to obtain any type of financial gain or benefit from securing a prospective student-athlete’s enrollment at an educational institution or from a student-athlete’s potential earnings as a professional athlete.


Looking solely at Kansas’ involvement in the matter:
Blackstock’s appearance on McLemore’s pass list for multiple games may lead to the NCAA to conclude that Kansas should have known he was in some way connected to McLemore. Kansas may then have to detail what monitoring they did of the individuals that basketball players added to the pass list, and why the school did not know about Blackstock’s connections to agents. Failing to answer those questions would, if the case gets that far, raise Kansas’ institutional culpability quite a bit.

From a broader scope, Cobb and Blackstock’s involvement with McLemore’s basketball career is just one of many unfortunate examples of men directly involved and on the periphery of AAU basketball looking to capitalize on the abilities of a young star with seemingly unending talent.

This is a story to closely monitor as it continues to unfold, and as Infante states: “this case is likely to leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.”

You can find Kevin on twitter @KLDoyle11