The latest on David Salinas; the NCAA HAS to investigate

UPDATE: The NCAA appears to be investigating Salinas, according to The Hardy Boys Goodman and Parrish.

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The David Salinas story took a number of twists in the past 24 hours.

First, Pablo Torre of SI.com took the story another step. He identified two more coaches -- Gonzaga head coach Mark Few and former Rice, Wichita State and Cornell coach Scott Thompson -- that invested with Salinas. But the more interesting information that Torre brought to light involved the money. He finally gave us some actual figures for what coaches lost. And, frankly, its a lot -- at least $7.8 milion in total:

According to documents reviewed by SI.com, the value of [Billy] Gillispie's investment alone was purported to be $2.3 million; [Lute] Olson's, $1.17 million; [Scott] Drew's, $621,000; [Mark] Few's, $353,000.

[...]

Scott Thompson (investment most recently valued at $65,000) ... Nebraska coach Doc Sadler ($38,000); Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (and former Rice) coach Willis Wilson ($642,000); Gonzaga assistant (and former Utah head coach) Ray Giacoletti ($1.2 million); United States Merchant Marine Academy (and former Nebraska) coach Danny Nee ($23,000); Augustana College coach Grey Giovanine ($533,000).

Torre's work was illuminating in that he also found out Salinas had clients outside of the college basketball coaching world. There were over 100 clients involved.

But that isn't what people are going to be talking about.

Late Tuesday night, Andy Katz published a story on ESPN.com claiming that the NCAA currently has no plans to open an investigation into David Salinas and the college coaches that invested with him:

A high-ranking source with direct knowledge of the NCAA's interest in the case told ESPN.com that the coaches invested money in the alleged scheme but that it isn't an NCAA issue and concluded no rules violations occurred.

Now, in the lede in that Katz story, he uses the phrase "at present", leaving open the possibility that an investigation will be opened at a later date (after Yahoo!, CBS, and the government do the work for them?), but it is ironic that the Katz story was published a little more than an hour after Fox 26 in Houston quoted Moses Malone Jr. -- a former member of Houston Select that played for Houston and Texas Tech -- as saying that he was questioned by an member of the NCAA investigative team on Monday and Tuesday regarding Salinas.

I'm not trying to discredit what Katz wrote, but there is no way in hell that the NCAA can overlook this situation.

The news broke on Sunday night, meaning that as of the writing of this post, the story is less than three days old. In that time, we've learned that at least 11 college basketball coaches invested at least $7.8 million with Salinas, and that at least nine of his former players ended up playing for one of those 11 coaches at the college level. We've also had two coaches -- Tom Penders in a story published by Dan Wolken of The Daily and an unnamed coach in a Houston Chronicle article -- claim that Salinas solicited them as a client with the implication that it would help them land recruits from his AAU program.

How can the NCAA not, at the very least, look into that?

Like I said, I'm not discrediting what Katz wrote. I'm sure he does have a source at the NCAA that is saying they have no current plans to look into why these coaches invested with Salinas.

But if the NCAA doesn't, at the very least, do their due diligence in this case, than they are even dumber than we think.

Because I'm positive that with the flock of investigative reporters that are currently digging into this story, there is going to be more dirt coming to light.