Scooter McDougle, Anton Currie, Kashif Payne, Adam Cuomo, Quinton Broussard, Sammy Villegas ... these are not names that really carried a lot of gravitas in the Rockets program. Keith Triplett was quite the player, but he's no UT Hall of Famer. Only if you follow the MAC (and even then!) or Toledo athletics do they ring an audible bell.
Anyways, it was made known yesterday that Cuomo, McDougle, Broussard and Currie are all going to enter guilty pleas on that annoying point-shaving scandal. Villegas already did so two years ago, which leaves Triplett and Payne — two basketball players, and perhaps the most accomplished of the seven.
Although there are many unanswered questions, hopefully these plea bargains bring out some additional shades of truth.
It never quite made a splash on the national scene, and I don't understand why. Stemming from indictments of point-fixing games, the NCAA never handed down any punishment to Toledo. No probation, no scholarships, no vacated wins. Instead, the federal government drove this one, handing down indictments to marginal players, even by Toledo's standards, regarding their involvement in a point-fixing scandal assisted by nefarious gamblers.
ESPN.com had done some pretty solid investigation throughout this whole scandal ever since it broke in early 2007. Perhaps the whole narrative reeked of boring details and underwhelming gifts from gamblers. It lacked the sizzle and starpower of, say, Derrick Rose and the SATs, or Cam Newton and a cash payment. No hilarity, such as sex on the floor of an Italian restaurant that didn't last very long. But the story was important, dag nammit.
I don't have the resources to investigate such a cumbersome story ... but it really needs to be delved into and dissected by investigative writers. I really do apologize on behalf of the university that the players involved are not professional-grade, but if you want to try and tie Bruce Gradkowski into the mix, then go right ahead. Until then, closure on this story is just gonna keep dragging on and on until the procedural stories eventually fade away into public record, leaving only bloggers with niche interests left wondering.