Let's review this one more time. The Federal government didn't care about college basketball recruiting until an on-going white collar crime case expanded to include bribes paid to college basketball coaches. They did not target Addidas over Nike, Addidas was dropped into their lap. If the target of the white collar crime case had been working with Nike/Under Armour/Puma/etc., they would have gone after them instead of Addidas. The FBI specifically told the NCAA to stay out of their way until the trials were finished. They are now finished and the NCAA has received all the materials that were presented at the trail. Sean Miller, who was mentioned in the transcripts of the wiretaps, has been notified by the NCAA that he is under investigation. Those investigations don't happen overnight.
Now as far as the NCAA and their turning a blind eye to everything is concerned - Don't you think that if rumors are circulating on the Web that School X is paying Player Y that the NCAA has heard about it, too? The big difference is, we can say anything we want on the multitude of message boards, but the NCAA can't say anything until someone rats out School X and gives them the evidence. Apparently everyone in the process, players, their families, booster, coaches, and fans would rather just curse under their breath and on message boards than do something that would really stop the cheating.
How fast would the judge rule in School X's favor in the inevitable lawsuit because the NCAA put them on probation and took away scholarships because they saw "a posting on School Z's fan message board that School X had paid Player Y?
