Brian Bowen, Villainized By Many, Would Be a Feel Good Story in the NBA
Brian Bowen is officially keeping his name in the 2018 NBA Draft, after never playing a second of college basketball.
Former Louisville and South Carolina basketball player Brian Bowen will officially never play college basketball. This comes after the NCAA informed him that he would likely be forced to sit out a second season if he remained at South Carolina.
Bowen’s story is quite familiar by now. Considered one of the best players in his class, and a McDonald’s All-American, Bowen committed to Louisville out of the blue in June of 2017. Soon after, it was uncovered that a Louisville coach was caught on tape in a pay-for-play scandal involving Adidas representative James Gatto, sending Bowen to the University of Louisville. The money was to be funneled to his father over the course of Bowen’s freshman season. Of course, this led to the firing of Louisville coach Rick Pitino, Athletic Director Tom Jurich, and multiple others, and will likely keep former Louisville assistant Jordan Fair out of basketball coaching for the rest of his life.
Louisville’s involvement in the scandal is still under FBI investigation, but since the scandal, Bowen was not allowed on the team at UofL (for obvious reasons), and ultimately found a home at the University of South Carolina. Bowen sat for the entirety of the 2017-18 season, and hoped for word from the NCAA on his eligibility.
Bowen entered his name in the NBA draft, waiting for an official ruling from the NCAA. He didn’t get that ruling until mere hours before the deadline, and when he received the news, he really had no other option than to stay in the draft.
Brian Bowen in SC release: “I’m completely devastated by the NCAA’s ruling. All I ever wanted to do was continue my education and play college basketball.... I’m grateful to South Carolina and Frank Martin for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to be a Gamecock.”
— Heath Cline (@heathradio) May 30, 2018
This is unforgivable on the NCAA’s part.
Forget what Bowen’s involvement was or was not in the Adidas scandal. Bowen was a kid involved in a mess with handlers, greedy parents, and greedier coaches. As a fan, you can be mad all you want at Brian Bowen for his involvement. Bowen, however, knew little to nothing about the payments between Adidas and his father. From the sounds of things, Bowen left his career in his parent’s hands, and his parents were to guide him in the right direction.
When he sat down with ESPN’s Outside the Lines in December, Bowen indicated as much. “I found out the same way the whole media did,” Bowen told ESPN, “I didn’t know anything, anything at all.”
By most accounts, it seems like Bowen was a lamb led to the slaughter in this situation. Bowen was steered wrong by men he looked at as mentors; men that he trusted. He was steered wrong by coaches involved, and he was steered wrong by his parents.
Even if Bowen did know about the payments, and he is such a good liar that the FBI cannot pinpoint his involvement, he was a kid surrounded by people advising him to make the wrong decisions. In the end, of course Bowen wants to make money, and of course he wants to make it as a professional basketball player. By all accounts, Bowen was trying to take the same path that people have before him for 14 years have been forced to take: play one or two years in college basketball, and then go get that money.
Unfortunately for Bowen, due to the NCAA’s ineptitude, Bowen will never play college ball. The NCAA indicated that it would be at least another year for them to rule whether or not Bowen would be eligible to play. At that point, it would have been at least two years since he was able to play a high level of competitive organized basketball and build his stock as a player.
As good as Bowen was coming out of high school, it is going to be a nearly impossible road for him to basketball’s highest level. Although Bowen’s name is in the draft, it is highly unlikely that he will be drafted, or even picked up as a free agent. Bowen still has a lot of red flags: no college or high level basketball experience, no film to look at against equal competition, and having to sit out over a year not improving his skills during in-game experience.
There are some players who are ready to play pro ball directly out of high school, but even those players don’t have to take a year off. Bowen could not realistically take two years off, as it would make his odds of ever making a professional roster even longer.
Where does Bowen fit in at this point? Well, he can hope to be picked up as a free agent, and try to work his way onto a G-League roster in hopes of making his way up the NBA ladder. However, the odds are much higher that he finds a place overseas to hone his craft.
Regardless of where Bowen ends up, he is going to have a brutal road if he wants the NBA to be his final destination. Even if he improves enough to work his way through European ball, or G-league ball onto an NBA roster, he will be a guy with a tarnished image. Fair or not, people now associate his name with being involved in the scandal. That is a reputation that is hard to change.
This is why I am cheering for Brian Bowen to succeed.
Bowen and his family caused huge issues for the University of Louisville and, sure, it is extremely frustrating. If there is a finger to point, though, the blame should not fall on Bowen. The blame falls on greedy schools and corporations. It falls on the NCAA for, yet again, not valuing the student-athlete experience. It falls on inept and greedy coaches and parents. And, yes, it is not just a Louisville coach, or just a couple of Adidas representatives, or just one parent. This is a product of a failed system, which Bowen will have a long road to overcome if he wants to achieve his dream.
The NCAA, a corporation who claims to put the student athlete first, again put the student-athlete in the most difficult possible situation. This student-athlete has not profited at all, has not had a chance to participate in their events as an athlete, even after being a member of two NCAA governed teams, and is forced to sit and wait for his fate to be decided for at least two years.
Meanwhile, the NCAA sits back and counts their billions of dollars (1.1 billion in 2017 alone), while they dole out punishments to anyone who even remotely threatens to receive an impermissible benefit. They turned a blind eye to two decades of systemic academic fraud, institutional covering up of hundreds of sexual abuse cases, and other disgusting, unspeakable things. But heaven forbid that someone try to use the American free enterprise system to profit off of their own likeness. They will put the hammer down hard, and punish the student-athlete to near career-ending lengths.
I am cheering for Brian Bowen because, although he will be villianized by many, he is a figurehead for a much larger issue. Bowen has a long road ahead of him, but we should all have his back. Because not even the people we should have trusted all along could do that.