(File Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

By Brad Schmidt and Jeff Manning

The University of Oregon did not aggressively review how its basketball coaches recruited a five-star prospect at the center of a federal investigation into corruption within college basketball, records obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive suggest.

University officials have said they found no evidence that the program offered money to any prospective athlete or family member.

The basis for that declaration: Eight members of the men’s basketball staff, in group interviews, said so.

But newly released documents indicate the university failed to examine any contact between its coaching staff and the very prospect the government’s criminal case was largely built around, high school star Brian Bowen Jr. He visited Eugene in May 2017 and strongly considered joining Oregon’s program.

University officials have publicly stated that they interviewed basketball staff and reviewed recruiting practices last year.

However, absent from a batch of university records released to The Oregonian/OregonLive this week is any indication that officials reviewed phone logs, emails or otherwise examined the interactions between coaches and Christian Dawkins, a talent hustler and go-between for the Bowen family. The university did not author any formal memo summarizing its findings or declaring that no recruiting improprieties occurred.

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Mark Lennihan

A federal jury last week found Dawkins guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Dawkins schemed to pay $100,000 to Bowen Jr.’s father in exchange for his son playing at the University of Louisville, an Adidas-sponsored school.

Phone records separately released this week by prosecutors disclosed publicly, for the first time, that Dawkins traded 20 phone calls and spent two hours on the phone in the weeks leading up to Bowen Jr.'s decision with a cell number associated with Oregon assistant coach Tony Stubblefield.

To be sure, the phone calls are not evidence of wrongdoing and federal prosecutors have not accused Oregon or anyone associated with the program of any impropriety. The contents of Dawkins’ and Stubblefield’s calls may never be known. Federal authorities have disclosed a wiretap on Dawkins’ phone from June 19 to Sept. 25, 2017 – monitoring that came after Dawkins’ calls with Stubblefield.

Yet for all the public baggage surrounding Dawkins and the Bowen family, the talent scout and top prospect are but footnotes among 48 pages of university records released this week in response to a public records request for all documentation of the institution’s 2017 review of recruiting.

The records are from October 2017, one month after Dawkins and others were arrested in a high-profile dragnet by the FBI and five months after Dawkins and Stubblefield were in regular contact during Bowen Jr.’s recruitment.

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Brad Schmidt | The Oregonian/OregonLive

The documents suggest that either the university knew its top recruiter, Stubblefield, had repeated contacts with Dawkins and chose not to look into it, or that Stubblefield did not disclose the frequency of his interactions with the middleman to the university during his October 2017 interview. The university has previously declined to answer questions about when it learned about the volume of calls between Dawkins and Stubblefield but a spokesman has said it is “not surprising” the two were in contact during Bowen Jr.’s recruitment.

On Thursday, in response to a question about whether the university’s review had been cursory – because it did not review phone logs or correspondence and lacked any formal conclusions – athletics spokesman Jimmy Stanton said via email: “This premise is inaccurate.”

In the documents released by Oregon, the most substantive comments about Dawkins were scribbled by hand on a spreadsheet. It’s not clear who wrote the notes or where the information about Dawkins came from.

“...talked to us about Bowen (his kid), how he fits into program, parents were listening to him,” the notes read. “wanted reassurance of playing time. Dawkins was/is an Adidas … knowing what we know, Bowen wasn’t going to a non-Adidas school.”

The university provided no records to show that it examined Stubblefield’s call history, text messages or emails with Dawkins from May and June 2017. In fact, it appears the university still may not have reviewed those records: In response to a public records request seeking those items, the university this week demanded more than $900 from The Oregonian/OregonLive.

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Brad Schmidt | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Also among the records released are a series of two-page questionnaires shared with the basketball team’s coaches, staff and players. It appears each individual was not asked to fill out the form. Rather, the questions apparently were read aloud by someone within the program and answers were provided collectively among the three groups.

Oregon’s coaches were asked if they ever promised cash benefits or tangible items to a prospect or the prospect’s family. They were asked if they ever wired money to prospects of families, or if they were aware that a prospect or current player received money or items of value. And they were asked if they had ever been approached by an agent, financial advisor, shoe company or representative for any of the above, “for the purposes of recruiting certain prospects.”

Across the board, Oregon’s coaches said “no,” the records show.

It appears that Oregon officials did not investigate any of those answers further, despite internal and publicly available records that might have raised questions.

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Brad Schmidt | The Oregonian/OregonLive

For instance, Altman in April 2017 received an email from Nike's vice president of global basketball sports marketing, Lynn Merritt. Merritt told Altman about two prospects he'd just seen, Luguentz Dort and Mohamed Bamba. Merritt thought they would "be a great fit at Oregon," according to public records obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive in December 2017.

Merritt even provided Altman with links to video footage and what appeared to be contact info for the players’ grassroots coaches and someone dubbed a “person of influence.” Merritt told Altman to let him know if the coach needed any additional info.

Altman replied enthusiastically within minutes.

“Luguentz is a top priority and we will get after Mohamed immediately,” Altman responded.

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Brad Schmidt | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Oregon’s review makes no reference to this interaction. Stanton, the athletic department spokesman, declined to address whether such an episode should have been disclosed by Altman during questioning.

Meanwhile, Dawkins himself represents a second potential discrepancy in the answers provided by coaches.

Dawkins was well-known within basketball circles as a talent scout and "runner" for a prominent sports agent, Andy Miller. Dawkins drew national media attention when basketball's most prolific scoop-getter reported May 4, 2017, that Dawkins had been fired by Miller because Dawkins had without authorization used an NBA player's Uber account more than 1,800 times.

Stubblefield called Dawkins on May 5, Dawkins’ phone records show.

The timing suggests that Dawkins no longer worked for Miller, the sports agent, at the time of the call.

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Brad Schmidt | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Yet Oregon’s review makes no reference to the fact that Dawkins worked for a sports agent at all. It does not investigate the timing of Dawkins’ interactions with the program or when he left Miller’s agency.

Stanton, the athletic department spokesman, said Thursday there was no contradiction in the coaches’ statements.

The calls to Dawkins “were made to him as a representative of the family of a prospective student-athlete, and there was no knowledge of any association with agents,” Stanton wrote.

Interestingly, Oregon’s investigation did reveal one connection that thus far had gone unpublicized.

Stubblefield is an acquaintance and customer of Rashan Michel, the high-end men’s clothier, who has also been indicted in the basketball corruption case.

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Brad Schmidt | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Stubblefield told the university that he met Michel at a Final Four event seven to eight years ago and has since purchased four or five suits from Thompson Bespoke Clothiers, the Atlanta company that Michel owns.

According to the university’s notes, Stubblefield said he and Michel would “cross paths” maybe “four times a year on the recruiting trail.” Stubblefield said he “didn’t know it was an issue that he needed to report or talk about,” according to the notes. “He’s a suit guy, nothing more.”

In reality, Michel is more than a suit guy. He’s a former NBA referee well connected in basketball circles. Prosecutors allege Michel paid bribes to persuade players and others to do business with him and his allies. Michel denies wrongdoing and his trial is scheduled for February.

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Brad Schmidt | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Still a mystery, meanwhile, is what specific steps the University of Oregon has taken in response to the latest allegations involving its basketball program.

During Dawkins’ trial in New York City last month, his attorney questioned Bowen Jr.’s father about allegedly receiving $3,000 from Stubblefield; Bowen Sr. testified that he couldn’t recall. And an attorney for Adidas executive Jim Gatto, who also was found guilty of fraud charges during the same trial, alleged without evidence that Oregon offered an “astronomical” sum to land Bowen Jr.

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Brad Schmidt | The Oregonian/OregonLive

The university issued a statement Oct. 4 emphasizing that basketball staff had once again been interviewed. The university “found no evidence that illicit conduct occurred,” the statement said.

But the university has refused a public records request to turn over its underlying documents. Unlike the 2017 records, officials now claim the 2018 documents are protected from public disclosure because of attorney-client privilege.

-- Brad Schmidt and Jeff Manning

bschmidt@oregonian.com

503-294-7628

@_brad_schmidt

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