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Miles Bridges donates $40 to charity to resolve NCAA violation

Men's College Basketball, Michigan State Spartans

Michigan State said Monday that leading scorer Miles Bridges paid $40 to a charity of his choice to resolve an NCAA violation uncovered in a university-conducted review of allegations made in documents published last week by Yahoo! Sports.

The documents related to the FBI's investigation of corruption in college basketball. Christian Dawkins, a former employee of NBA agent Andy Miller, filed expense reports claiming that he paid Bridges' mother $400 in cash and that he paid $70.05 for dinner with the Bridges family, according to those documents.

Michigan State said Monday that it conducted an internal investigation on Friday and determined the allegations related to the loan were not true. Bridges said Sunday that neither he nor any member of his family took money from Dawkins.

The school said Monday that while investigating those claims last week, it discovered that Bridges' family members had dinner with an agent last winter without his knowledge, which is an NCAA violation.

Michigan State said it notified the NCAA, which declared Bridges ineligible while it conducted a review. On Saturday afternoon, MSU received word that Bridges had been reinstated by the NCAA. As part of the reinstatement process, Bridges was required to pay $40, the value of the dinner, to a charity of his choice.

Bridges played Sunday in the Spartans' 68-63 win over Wisconsin that clinched the Big Ten title. Bridges scored only 10 points and said afterward that he was nervous he would be deemed ineligible for the rest of the season when reports including his name surfaced last week. He said he was relieved Saturday to learn he was cleared to play by the NCAA and added that he has never met Dawkins.

"I don't know him at all," Bridges said. "If he was in here, I wouldn't know if he was here."

Bridges was asked by a reporter after Sunday's game if he or anyone in his family received any extra benefits.

"I haven't. My mom hasn't. It's as simple as that," he replied. 

Bridges said an alleged "late-night meeting" in Los Angeles mentioned in Dawkins' email and cited in the Yahoo! report never took place.

"They don't even let us out of the camp at Nike," he said.

Michigan State said in its statement Monday that it is not unusual for reinstatement cases to be handled within a day.

ESPN's Dan Murphy contributed to this report.

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