On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Brian Bowen was living the life of a highly touted basketball player coveted by several top colleges.

His high school team, La Lumiere School, toured the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, and played a game on national television. Its jerseys and warmup jackets displayed the logo of Nike, the sneaker company that sponsored La Lumiere, a private school from La Porte, Indiana. About a dozen reporters waited for Bowen, a lanky 6-foot-7 wing, after the game.

He was an important subject: Bowen was one of the most high-profile recruits in the Class of 2017 who had yet to commit to a college.

Bowen stood center stage then in the unusually rarefied world of big-time college basketball. The news media, sponsors, fans and famous college coaches were covetous — and anxiously waiting to hear what his choice would be.

Eight months later, though, everything that seemed expectant about that moment has been redrawn by federal prosecutors as the trappings of a corrupted marketplace.

Last week, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York released criminal complaints that outlined bribery and corruption charges against 10 men. Prosecutors constructed a narrative in which Bowen featured prominently — not by name, but as “Player-10.”

The storyline that emerged had a familiar setting for anyone who follows big-time college sports: the intersection of talented young athletes who can generate revenue for high schools, TV networks, shoe manufacturers and universities; voluminous NCAA rules that prohibit those athletes from being paid beyond scholarships and related costs; and the shadowy figures eager to bridge that gap.

Prosecutors did not charge Bowen or his family. He has not spoken publicly since the complaints were released, and he could not be reached for comment for this article.

It was June 3 before Bowen, whose nickname is Tugs, revealed his college selection, and when he did, the winner was a late-arriving suitor that surprised nearly everyone: Louisville.

In one of the criminal complaints, prosecutors suggested that Bowen’s attraction to Louisville had not been stimulated by the university’s atmosphere, its pedigree or its penchant for developing players like him into NBA pros. Bowen picked the Cardinals, according to the federal complaint, soon after an executive at Louisville’s equipment partner, Adidas, agreed to funnel $100,000 to Bowen’s family.

“This is the luckiest I’ve ever been,” Louisville coach Rick Pitino told a radio interviewer after the news of Bowen’s signing broke.

He would hardly say that today. In the wake of the federal complaints — and their description of Bowen’s recruitment — Pitino was removed as Louisville’s coach. His boss, athletic director Tom Jurich, was also relieved of his duties, and the university — punished by the NCAA in June for an earlier recruiting scandal — could face more sanctions.

Like Bowen, Louisville and Pitino were not named in the complaint. But the 10 men charged comprised nearly all the colors in the college sports corruption rainbow: coaches, sneaker company officials, an agent, a money manager, an AAU coach, and even a middleman whose main business is bespoke suits. Six high-profile programs were implicated, and investigators hinted that others were up to similar endeavors, as was at least one of Adidas’ corporate rivals.

But nowhere was the cynics’ knowing intimations about the true nature of college basketball more clearly sketched than in the tale of Brian Bowen.

From Michigan to Indiana

As a senior, Bowen was named a finalist for the Naismith national player of the year award as he led La Lumiere to a 29-1 record and the No. 1 spot in USA Today’s expert rankings.

Under a bleached mushroom haircut, an homage to NFL star Odell Beckham Jr., he glided over the court, and scouts who watched him noted that his game — and his body — appeared to have plenty of room to grow. The fact that Bowen had yet to pick a college only made him more intriguing.

As the season progressed, his recruiting process intensified. Top coaches like Texas’ Shaka Smart, Arizona’s Sean Miller and UCLA’s Steve Alford visited him, and he went to see them — and others — on their campuses.

But the smart money was on Michigan State. The Spartans’ coach, Tom Izzo, had visited Bowen in September 2016, and the university’s campus in East Lansing had been the destination for other Saginaw natives like Bowen.

But Izzo could not close the deal, and Bowen’s spring of indecision began. He promised a commitment at an event in Brooklyn in April, but it never came. In early May, he visited Oregon. Then, on Memorial Day, he took a trip to Louisville.

Four days later, Bowen announced that Louisville was his leading candidate, and the day after that, he committed, posting on Twitter and Instagram an image of himself in a Cardinals jersey, his right hand shaped like a pistol. He had finally pulled the trigger.

His choice, according to federal officials, involved much more than basketball.

In May, according to the federal complaint, a Louisville coach whom investigators did not name had requested that several men come together to help secure Bowen’s commitment. They agreed to funnel $100,000 in four installments to Bowen’s family in exchange for Bowen’s commitment to the team — one of the most prominent in the stable of college basketball programs that Adidas sponsors.

The men were Jim Gatto, global director of marketing for Adidas Basketball; Merl Code, who works with Adidas’ grass-roots basketball program; Christian Dawkins, an employee of a sports management company who had ties to Saginaw and to Bowen through a youth program; and Munish Sood, a money manager.

Two days before Bowen’s visit to Louisville, according to the complaint, Gatto and a second, unnamed Louisville coach — Pitino, according to someone familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity — had two phone conversations, and three days later they had another. Pitino told The Courier-Journal of Louisville that he and Gatto had been discussing Adidas’ sponsorship deal with Terry Rozier, a former Louisville player.

Gatto’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

Whatever was said, within days Bowen was a Cardinal.

Transferring the money

What followed, however, is a fit of bureaucratic frustration. On a July phone call, the complaint said, Code told Dawkins it was difficult for him and Gatto to come up with the money from Adidas, since it required the creation of a phony purchase order to conceal the payment’s true destination. (As Code would later explain, in a phone conversation recorded by the government, “it’s on the books, it’s not on the books for what it’s actually for.”)

Code asked Dawkins to front the first $25,000 payment since, as Code said in a subsequent call, Bowen’s father had expected the first installment in June. Through a backdoor account, Adidas later reimbursed him, the complaint said. This is “how stuff happens with kids and getting into particular schools,” Code said, according to the complaint.

On July 11, an undercover FBI agent drove from New York City to Sood’s office in Princeton, New Jersey, and gave him $25,000 in cash on Dawkins’ behalf, according to the complaint. A couple of days later, Sood met with Bowen’s father and gave him most of the money, with Dawkins saying he would take care of the rest.

Neither Bowen’s father, Brian Bowen Sr., nor his mother, Carrie Melecke, responded to requests for comment. Last week, Melecke denied knowledge of the allegations to The Courier-Journal.

It is unclear what is next for Bowen. He has hired a lawyer, Jason Setchen, who specializes in NCAA reinstatement cases. (Setchen did not respond to requests for comment.) If the scheme with Adidas jeopardizes Bowen’s NCAA eligibility, another program is unlikely to accept him. He could choose to try to play overseas or in the NBA’s development league, or he could sit out and enter next June’s NBA draft.

For all the trouble, Bowen’s family most likely received little more than $25,000 in the scheme, according to the complaint.