Former Kansas shooting guard Ben McLemore spoke out Friday about allegations that his AAU coach took money in order to steer him toward the Jayhawks during his recruitment. McLemore is expected to be a top pick in next month's 2013 NBA Draft.
In an interview with Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated at the NBA combine, McLemore denied any knowledge of the money exchange between those in question and his former AAU coach, Darius Cobb, who came out in early May and admitted to accepting money to persuade McLemore to sign with Kansas.
McLemore spoke out on Friday, telling Davis he was ready to cooperate with the NCAA should an official investigation take place. Because he has entered the NBA draft pool, McLemore is no longer under any NCAA rules.
"I would tell them the truth and tell them what I know, and just cooperate with them," McLemore said. "Hopefully they'll cooperate with me and hear my side."
He continued by expressing shock about the Cobb confession and admitted that the parties involved have been pushed away from his inner circle in the wake of Eric Prisbell's USA Today report that implicated Cobb and Rodney Blackstock, the head of Hooplife Academy, exchanged money.
"My reaction was like, 'Wow,'" he said. "That was someone that I could trust, and I put a person in my circle that I felt comfortable with and I know a long time that I wanted to help me through this process [of selecting an agent]. And for him to say the things he did and put that out there like that, I wish it wasn't true ... [Cobb] put me in jeopardy and my family in jeopardy."
The guard said he has not spoken with Cobb since the article was published and that the story was the first he had heard about payments from Blackstock to Cobb. "I didn't see no money going around. My mom hasn't seen no money going around. We don't know nothing about it," he said. "So it was kind of new to me."
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