Go to the NBA, College Stars, and Don't Look Back - New York Times

"We're not talking about any of that stuff," he said.

Maybe he should have let you speak; it couldn't have gone worse than when he or other university officials have had their say recently.

The past five weeks have been a nightmare for your university, as hundreds of former athletes told the world how the former Michigan State and U.S.A. Gymnastics trainer Larry Nassar sexually abused them for decades. It cost the university's president and athletic director their jobs.

Now a federal pay-to-play investigation threatens all of college sports. This is big-boy court, after all, not the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil world of the N.C.A.A.

Coach Izzo didn't know you had already answered that question at courtside. You had paid $40 to a charity to resolve an N.C.A.A. violation. You were embarrassed. Your mother was embarrassed. So when the Big Ten Network's postgame crew asked how you were holding up, you told them the truth: "It was tough on me."

So move on, please. And take the University of Arizona's DeAndre Ayton and every supremely talented hoop star who has been implicated in the scandal with you. Your schools have gotten theirs. It's time to get yours.

Don't take my word for it. Listen to LeBron James. He is deservedly one of the most celebrated athletes on the planet. He is also perhaps the greatest at cultivating his brand and leveraging it to its maximum value. James went straight to the N.B.A. when the league still allowed that.

"I do know what five-star athletes bring to a campus, both in basketball and football," he said. "I know how much these college coaches get paid. I know how much these colleges are gaining off these kids."

"I've always heard the narrative that they get a free education," he added, "but you guys are not bringing me on campus to get an education. You guys are bringing me on it to help you get to a Final Four or to a national championship."

Everyone in college sports is getting rich but you, Miles. You and your peers, however, are the ones who bear the weight, who pay the price, when things go wrong for the adults. Recruiting scandals in college sports are as old as the games themselves. Don't believe me? See Southern Methodist and Kentucky and, more recently, North Carolina and Louisville.

An N.C.A.A. appeals panel ruled last month that the Cardinals must vacate their 2013 men's basketball title, upholding sanctions against the program after it found that a basketball staff member once hired strippers to have sex with players and recruits.

In a statement, Louisville's interim president, Greg Postel, declared — even as he acknowledged that the stories about the strippers were true — that the N.C.A.A. was "simply wrong" to punish the university.

"The N.C.A.A.'s ruling cannot change the accomplishments or the excitement generated by our Cardinals basketball team," he told Louisville fans. "It cannot change the feeling many of us shared as we experienced the victories those teams earned."

In other words, Postel gave an institutional shrug and said, So what?

On Thursday, Arizona Coach Sean Miller gave a similar response. He denied a report that he had ever paid Ayton or any other Wildcat in his tenure to come play for him, as a report about the federal investigation has alleged. Hours later, he returned to coach his team — after a one-game leave — and received a standing ovation from the Arizona faithful at the university's McKale Center.

Whether that ovation was righteous will presumably be determined in the coming months when the bribery and fraud cases are heard in court, and the wiretaps that investigators have collected are made public. Arizona (23-7) should have cut a wide swath through the N.C.A.A. tournament by then.

Whether they get to keep those 23 wins, or any more they earn this month, is neither your problem nor your peers' problem, Miles. By then, we hope, you will be in the N.B.A., earning your own ovations and the millions in compensation commensurate with your value.

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