The FBI’s investigation into college basketball recruiting corruption took a new turn last week when a jury ruled that Adidas executive Jim Gatto, former Adidas consultant Merl Code, and aspiring agent Christian Dawkins were guilty on all counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

In doing so, the jury also determined that the college basketball programs and coaches involved were actually the victims in the case, as they apparently did not know the full scale of violations that were being committed in connection to high-profile recruits, agents, and shoe companies behind the scenes.

Nebraska head coach Tim Miles, who has been in the profession since 1989, reacted similarly to many others who were watching the case unfold over the past few months.

While it was good to see a handful of dirty players in the recruiting world go down, it’s impossible to think that many others weren’t also knowingly at fault.

“(The verdict) doesn’t surprise me, but I think the layers of it - I don’t want to say disillusioning, but it does disappoint you a great deal,” Miles said on Monday.

Last week’s ruling was just the first of what are expected to be even more cases tying college basketball programs to illegal recruiting activity, and Miles hopes the result of those upcoming trials would be to “get the cheaters out of the game.”

Miles added that NCAA violations were a fine line for any coach, admitting that he had been caught breaking the rules during his career (albeit on a much smaller scale).

A coach who prides himself on running a clean program at Nebraska, Miles said the wide-spread cheating at the high-major level had made it significantly more difficult for those coaches who don’t cheat to recruit against those who do.

Miles said he has been on the wrong end of some shady recruiting strategies at Nebraska, which has caused the Huskers to lose out on a few potential recruits.

“You know when you’re dancing with the devil,” Miles said. “Sometimes you might expect it, like, ‘This one’s a little funky here,’ or ‘Why is this kid interested in us’ or whatever it might be. Then, pretty soon, somebody asks for something, and you’re like, ‘No, sorry, we don’t play that game.’

“Have we violated NCAA rules? Everybody has. You can just go check my record; we’ve screwed up… But, when you knowingly do something wrong, you just know you’re doing it wrong. There is plausible deniability to a lot of stuff.”

Miles credited the NBA for expanding its resources for the G-League, which serves as a farm system for talented players out of college who aren’t ready to make the jump to the NBA.

But even with the G-League now offering contracts as much as $125,000 per season to entice players who might not be interested in dealing with all of the outside requirements of a student-athlete, Miles said it still pales to the benefits (legal or illegal) of playing college basketball.

So while the NCAA has tried to take drastic measures in reshaping the summer basketball recruiting landscape and cutting the AAU programs and shoe companies out of the process as much as possible, a permanent solution to the underlying problem has yet to be found.

“I think the thing that really disappoints me is parents and families out there that rob the joy of that first decision from that kid,” Miles said. “Brian Bowen (the player directly connected to the Adidas case) wanted to go somewhere else. He wanted to go to Michigan State or Arizona or wherever. His dad’s like, ‘Nope, nope, you’re going to go to…’

“Where’s the joy in going to Louisville? You’ve robbed that kid of that decision, of that opportunity to make a decision where he wanted to be, live with that, die with that. ‘Oh I’m going to transfer’ or whatever it might be, but at least it’s the kid. That’s how they grow up. Obviously, it’s too often that some kids aren’t getting those opportunities.”