Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Coach K and Mason Plumlee talk about Lance Thomas

Lance Thomas

Friday afternoon, according to the Associated Press, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said that he and his program would cooperate with the NCAA’s inquiry into whether or not former Duke forward Lance Thomas broke rules during his senior season in December 2009.

Thomas, a member of the 2010 national championship team, purchased more almost $100,000 of jewelry as a senior. He was later sued by the New York jeweler for allegedly owing more over $67,000. The lawsuit has since been settled.

During the Duke media day on Friday, according to the News & Observer’s Laura Keeley, Coach K was unprompted when talking about Thomas’ situation:

“Before anything was made public, they started working together to go through a process of seeing what happened. As a result of that, we want to honor the integrity of that process. That’s why I haven’t made any statements about it and will continue to do that. I hope you would understand that there is an integrity involved in the process, and we’re cooperating fully, and I’m going to adhere to that. . I have complete trust and confidence in all the parties involved and am very proud of our compliance record over the 33 years that we’ve been here.”

Senior forward Mason Plumlee, who played one season at Duke alongside Thomas, also opened up about Thomas’s lawsuit with the jeweler:

“It was kind of shocking. You come to the locker room everyday, and you hear about other schools, ‘oh this happened at Ohio State, this happened in football,’ but you think you’re exempt or something because you’re at Duke, but you’re not. Again, we don’t know where he got the money from, what actually happened.”

According to Keeley’s report, Plumlee said the NCAA’s inquiry is not a distraction to the team.

Thomas appeared in two games for the New Orleans Hornets last season, in his first year in the NBA.

Terrence is also the lead writer at NEHoopNews.com and can be followed on Twitter: @terrence_payne