Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Did Jawann McClellan implicate a former Arizona assistant coach and Salinas investor?

The latest on the burgeoning scandal involving David Salinas and the college coaches that invested with him comes from Bruce Pascoe of AZCentral.com, who spoke with Jawann McClellan. McClellan played for the Houston Select, the AAU program run by Salinas, and went to Arizona to play for Lute Olson, who had $1.17 million invested with Salinas:

Jawann McClellan said he's "pretty sure" college basketball coaches tried to gain leverage in his recruitment by investing money with [Salinas].

[...]

"Coach Olson was probably one of his biggest clients and (committing to UA) caught a lot of people off guard," McClellan said Tuesday by phone from Houston. "A lot of people thought I was going to Texas, but I was confident in my decision."

[...]

McClellan said Salinas was only involved in his decision to attend UA because he was a friend of former UA assistant and former Rice head coach Scott Thompson, who saw McClellan play travel-ball events for Salinas' Houston Select team.
There are a couple of noteworthy nuggets in this article.

For starters, there is that last paragraph in the blockquote. McClellan said that the friendship between Salinas and Scott Thompson played a role in his recruitment. According to Pablo Torre's article for SI.com yesterday, Thompson had $65,000 invested with Salinas.

Then there is also the matter of Greg Wise. Wise is the father of Nic Wise, a former Arizona player, and Dondre Wise, a current Arizona guard. The elder Wise coaches at powerhouse Yates high school in Houston and also coaches with the Houston Select. He said he knew that Olson had money invested with Salinas.

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