Rush The Court

We know about the on-court tradition of the University of Cincinnati men’s basketball program — two titles, six final fours, ten conference titles, and so on.  Mention the program in any conversation, however, and most people will, by reflex, immediately think of a place once known as “the UNLV of the East.”  The unflattering legal history of players and sometimes coaches involved with this team over the last 25 years could fill an entire series of law journals, and there’s been little progress made in rehabbing the program’s public image in recent days.  Imagine our surprise, then, when we saw this tweet from UC’s Cashmere Wright yesterday, evidently about a little soiree happening…well, as we post this:

According to Wright’s bio on the UC website, his birthday is 1/9/1990 — making him 20 years old.

Now, there’s been no crime committed, here, but the implication of that reference to “ALCOHOL ON US” is that there will be one committed, since Wright can not lawfully buy or consume alcohol, or (even if he was 21) be responsible for other persons under 21 drinking it.  And this comes not even two weeks after that incident at Notre Dame, where 41 individuals were arrested for underage drinking, including ND’s leading returning scorer, Tim Abromaitis, and ten other athletes.

We’re not saying anything untoward happened, or is happening, at this party.  Maybe he was tweeting this for his housemates who are all at least 21.  And maybe everyone drinking at this bash, assuming it happened, is also at least 21.  Considering the team Wright plays for, though, was that your first thought?  We understand that college kids do this kind of thing all the time.  They have house parties and, yes, that law about the drinking age is often violated, and it happens at almost every college in the country, not just Cincinnati.  We just thought that maybe the folks at UC would at least like to appear to be trying to mend their basketball team’s public image.  Wright’s tweet just makes it look like he doesn’t care, or he hasn’t been made to care enough by people in charge.