Longtime friend and former Northside teammate Jabari Ashe responded Saturday to the Yahoo Sports article on the FBI probe into college basketball. In the report, Bam Adebayo’s name appeared on bank records and expense reports that showed a “wide range of impermissible payments to players and their families.”

“I’ve been friends with Bam to know that he’s never taken money from anyone,” Ashe said. “He’s not the type of person to put himself in position to take money.”

Ashe went on to say that those investigating the wrong doing should look at the adults involved in the lives of players.

“Everybody’s discussing the FBI probe on kids that were 16 or 17 at the time and accusing these kids of taking money,” he said. “The ironic thing to me is that they can ridicule and accuse these guys of taking money and then leaving out the names of adults that were in their lives at the time — basically handling them, taking them places, and things of that nature.”

Ashe was a guard on the Adebayo-led Northside team that made it to the 1-A eastern-regional championship. He averaged 4.9 points and 1.8 assists that season. Adebayo averaged a double-double with just north of 32 points and 21 rebounds per game.