Former Whitefish Bay star Diamond Stone is one of several players named in an ongoing FBI probe into major college basketball rules violations. Stone played for Maryland for one season before being drafted by the New Orleans Pelicans in 2016. He currently plays for the Salt Lake City Stars of the G League.
On Friday, Yahoo!Sports posted documents from an FBI investigation concerning corruption in college basketball which implicated over 20 universities in the breaking of NCAA rules.
Alabama, Duke, Kentucky, LSU, Maryland, Michigan State, NC State, North Carolina, Seton Hall, Texas, USC and Washington were among the many universities the FBI has used wiretaps, intercepted communications from and conducted other investigative techniques with.
Maryland Coach Mark Turgeon said he and his staff had no involvement in any payments to players and promised to cooperate with the investigation.
At the heart of the probe has been sports agent Christian Dawkins, who may be charged with wire fraud for his role in ensuring that standout high school players ended up at certain universities. The FBI intercepted conversations between Dawkins and Arizona head coach Sean Miller in which they discussed making sure that center Deandre Ayton went to Arizona. The two men are alleged to have talked about paying Ayton $100,000 to attend Arizona. Ayton is projected by NBA scouts to be the number 1 overall pick in the 2018 NBA draft.
Diamond Stone, Dennis Smith Jr, Markelle Fultz, Kyle Kuzma and Josh Jackson are among current NBA players named by the FBI as having received financial gifts to attend their respective universities.
Collin Sexton of Alabama, Miles Bridges of Michigan State and Wendell Carter of Duke are currently active NCAA players implicated by the FBI.
