Nashville, Tenn. (EETV) - As sessions 1 and 2 come to a close at SEC Tipoff '18, there was one common theme: what does the investigation mean to the coaches, players, and how it will affect the sport.
On Sept. 26 college basketball was rocked by the arrests of several college basketball assistant coaches involved in a bribery scheme, including Auburn's Chuck Person.
"It's just tough," said Missouri head coach Cuonzo Martin. "Nobody's perfect. We all make mistakes in some form."
The bribery scheme investigated by the FBI can be called a "pay to play" situation.
Paying college athletes to play at certain universities is not a new idea and has been a hot-button issue in college athletics.
"The fact is, it's been going on for probably 100 years," said Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes. "You hope that this is gonna put the breaks on it for a little bit."
Florida coach Mike White said he was "not really" surprised to hear of an investigation into the bribery scheme
"You know you hear stuff all the time," said White.
As the investigation continues, speculation continues to swirl around the college basketball sphere of whether other schools are involved and who are the specific players who were offered money.
"Right now I'm just really focused on coaching my team," said Vanderbilt head coach Bryce Drew. "What we tell our team is control things we can control, so we're gonna go about recruiting the same way."
With SEC basketball tipping off in November, the focus on the season has been overshadowed by what is to come from the investigation.
"It happened," said Tennessee's Barnes. "We have to deal with it right now and start playing games and hopefully get through all this."
The afternoon session will be highlighted by Kentucky's John Calipari in the early session and Auburn's Bruce Pearl in the late session.
Pearl is scheduled to address the media at 4:40 p.m. CT and will be followed by his players Bryce Brown and Horace Spencer at 5:15 p.m. CT.
