Following Virginia’s 66-37 win against Pittsburgh on Saturday, Cavalier coach Tony Bennett began his postgame press conference with a statement concerning recent media reports about corruption in college basketball.
Yahoo! Sports released an article detailing federal documents with “sweeping potential NCAA violations involving high-profile players, schools” on Friday. That article included photographs of expense reports for Christian Dawkins, a former associate for NBA agent Andy Miller and his agency ASM Sports. Within those photos, there is line item on Dawkins’ expense report indicating dinner with Malcolm Brogdon’s mom at a Ritz Carlton for $64.16 on March 14, 2016. Jann Adams, Brogdon’s mother, told The Daily Progress, however, that she didn’t remember having dinner with any agent or ever going to Ritz Carlton for dinner.
Bennett commented on the reports after the win Saturday.
“It’s really sad [referring to college basketball], and it’s so hard to know what’s true and what’s not, and I think ultimately from this – I’m hopeful that the truth will come out and in the long run it will be better for college basketball,” Bennett said. “Virginia’s name was mentioned in something, and it had nothing to do with recruiting. It was something with Malcom Brogdon’s mother, who I’ve known for eight years, and she has maybe the most integrity and is one of the kindest ladies that I know. She made a statement, and this is a non-story. I absolutely believe her and I just want to make it clear that that’s it on that. We’re trying to get this thing going, and keep going. It’s a special day for us to win our outright ACC Championship. But, I do want to acknowledge this. It’s so hard to know what’s going on, and what’s actually true and not. I think it’s wise to not make too many comments or go into detail, but I hope in the long run the truth does come out. College basketball will be in a stronger place eventually, and it has to. So, with that, I think we’ll leave it at that and move on to questions about the game or our players or anything else.”
You can view the statement in the postgame video below:
Thank you Tony. Enough said. I didn’t believe it anyway.