Sean Miller on Thursday vehemently denied the ESPN report claiming that he paid a recruitgetty images
Questions "continue to swirl" around ESPN's report involving Arizona men's basketball coach Sean Miller "allegedly discussing paying $100,000" to get C Deandre Ayton to play at the school on an FBI wiretap, according to Jeremy Cluff of the ARIZONA REPUBLIC. Miller yesterday during a press conference "vehemently denied the allegation to the media" and now, SI has "reported that it has a source that says ESPN's report was inaccurate." The report from SI "further clouds the strength of ESPN's reporting on the subject" (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 3/2). Miller yesterday called elements of the ESPN report “false and defamatory.” ESPN also has “twice corrected some details in the report, including the timeline” of events (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 3/2). In Arizona, Dan Bickley writes many “heavy questions still linger, especially after ESPN continued to back its report that an FBI wiretap caught Miller breaking the rules that govern college basketball.” If Miller is “innocent, he has been defamed by a media giant.” But if he is “guilty, he just doubled-down in a most dangerous game, at the expense of a great program” (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 3/2).
STICKY SITUATION: NBC Sports Bay Area’s Ray Ratto said of ESPN’s report on Miller, “It does matter what ESPN wrote because if (Mark) Schlabach couldn't get all the details right on that or they were trying to play coy with him, 1) Schlabach should’ve held the story until he had something better, and 2) If this is their best stuff and it’s not convincing people, maybe Miller gets away with it. I don't know if this is the slam-dunk a lot of people think it is. ... If you give somebody a crack in your story, you're asking the rest of it to be torn apart. You can't make a mistake in your timeline when it comes to something like this, you have to have it absolutely nailed down" ("The Happy Hour," NBC Sports Bay Area, 3/1).
