photo by: Dylan Lysen

Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby speaks at the conference's college basketball media day in Kansas City, Mo., on Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said at the conference’s media day Wednesday morning that he spoke with KU coach Bill Self Tuesday evening but did not ask him about allegations that families of University of Kansas players received cash payments to attend KU.

In recent testimony at a federal trial on corruption in college basketball, both the prosecution and the defense said families of KU players Billy Preston and Silvio De Sousa received cash payments.

“I would never ask him (to respond to the allegations) because I know he can’t respond to it at this point,” Bowlsby said of his conversation with Self. “I did not because I know he can’t respond to me.”

“I talk to people at Kansas all the time. I talked to coach Self last night, and I’ve talked to (Athletic Director) Jeff Long on a number of occasions just to touch base and know as much as I could, but they aren’t at liberty to share information. They haven’t had a lot of information shared with them. We are all in the same boat.”

As the jury considers the evidence for a third day in the federal trial in New York City, Bowlsby said he is paying close attention.

“It sounds as if they are getting to the end of the process in New York, and once that happens KU in particular said they will have comments and I trust that they will,” he said. “Beyond that I don’t have any insider information and I don’t have the depth of knowledge of it to make intelligent comments on it.”

As of Wednesday morning, the jury continued deliberations over whether former Adidas executive Jim Gatto, former amateur coach Merl Code and business manager Christian Dawkins defrauded various colleges, including KU, by concealing the use of under-the-table payments of up to $100,000 by Adidas in exchange for commitments to programs that were seen as a path to big NBA paydays.

All three men pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers haven’t disputed that payments were arranged in violation of NCAA rules, but they argue that the schools never suffered any harm.

Bowlsby said the conference would take the accusations seriously, but there is a process the NCAA must go through before taking any action. He noted the NCAA rules now allow for the organization to use information revealed in third-party settings, such as a criminal trial, but testimony in court does not necessarily mean it is fact.

“What gets said around court cases, what gets reported around court cases is not necessarily gospel,” he said. “There will be a subsequent process that involves the NCAA, and it’s at that point the conference will get involved.”

He said the NCAA and the Big 12 likely won’t get involved in the issue until the federal government finishes with the case. Two more trials related to the issue are expected to take place in the spring.

KU, which has won at least a share of the last 14 Big 12 Conference regular season championships, has become a center of the current trial, specifically Self’s relationship with government witness and former Adidas consultant T.J. Gassnola. Gassnola testified that he paid $90,000 to the mother of Preston and $2,500 for college courses to Fenny Falmagne, the guardian of De Sousa. Gassnola testified that he never told Self about the payments.

Bowlsby said he has not spoken to any of the Big 12 university chancellors or athletic directors about KU having an unfair advantage in basketball recruiting based on what has been revealed in court.

“Everybody is aware it’s going on but until we get to the process of being able to have it under the jurisdiction of the conference or the jurisdiction of the NCAA, there isn’t anything to do,” he said. “It’s a linear process and we aren’t there yet.”

When asked if he thought ending multimillion dollar deals between universities and shoe companies could remove the corruption in recruiting, Bowlsby said it’s possible but some issues would likely remain.

“It’s pretty hard to unring that bell,” he said. “I think you could probably fix some of it (by ending those relationships), but to say that is going to dry up the money … There is a lot of money going between hands in the club operations, and it’s not all shoe company money.”

He said the next step would likely be finding ways to monitor and control the relationships between the shoe companies and how they get involved in recruiting.

“Clearly there is influence in the system and to the extent we can manage it and control it, we ought to do that,” he said. “I think that’s the step that comes after, is rules that respond to things that have been raised in the court case.”

He said he thinks only a few institutions are involved in the recruiting scandal, but he’s not sure just which ones yet because the NCAA process hasn’t started.

“I think it’s easy to say everything is wrong in NCAA basketball,” he said. “Everything is not wrong … It’s a great source of opportunity, and for all the reasons we love March Madness, there is a lot of good in college basketball.

“It isn’t all good,” he continued. “To the extent we can, we ought to try to fix it.”

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby comments on college basketball corruption trial