- Maybe it’s the extra week in March before Selection Sunday this year or maybe it’s something else, but the last couple of nights of basketball have brought us a handful of bizarre incidents that seemingly have little to no relationship with common definitions of sanity. Everyone is already well-aware of the peculiar net-cutting ceremony that Indiana held for sharing a Big Ten title after a tough home loss to Ohio State on Tuesday night. That seemed to set the train to crazytown rolling. Last night, Syracuse‘s official Twitter account made this rather interesting statement: “Did I just watch Jim Boeheim’s last game in the Carrier Dome? One source says yes.” That source claimed that the school was in trouble with the NCAA and Boeheim had been asked to step down, and, according to the Syracuse Post-Standard, turned out to be a 19-year old student at a local community college who stood by his story. He claimed that he was also correct about the Bernie Fine case and Dion Waiters turning pro. Syracuse, for its part, deleted the volatile and widely mocked tweet and later issued a statement that said the tweet was “inadvertently and mistakenly sent out. Nothing contained in the tweet or the blog link is accurate or true.” Smoke/fire or the nonsensical writings of a kook? Nothing would shock us at this point.
- The other weird thing that occurred during last night’s action went down after most people in the country were in bed, but with about five minutes remaining in the game and Stanford holding a 19-point lead on the road at rival California, a scuffle ensued during a loose ball situation. Most of the players on the floor got involved in one way or another, but the real problem arose when three Stanford assistant and one Cal assistant came off the bench to help break things up. A bunch of technical fouls were handed out (three on each team’s players), but in a rule application that only makes sense in some alternate universe, the four assistants who left the bench to act as peacemakers were summarily ejected from the game. It turns out that the head coach is the only person allowed to leave the bench under any circumstances, which means that the NCAA’s seat belt rule clearly needs some further modification to account for situations such as these. All we can wonder is: What’s on top for tonight?
- The state of New Jersey is back in the NCAA’s good graces — at least for the time being — with a US District Court judge’s decision to provide a permanent injunction upholding a law that bans sports betting within the state. You may recall that last year the NCAA enjoined the state from hosting any of its championship events as a result of its passage of a law allowing sports gambling despite a federal law preempting it. The NCAA as a result on Wednesday released a memo stating that Garden State universities may again hold NCAA championship games and events within its borders. For many sports this academic year, the change comes too late, as several schools were not allowed to host home games and were forced to play elsewhere instead. Additionally, the 2015 East Regional of the NCAA Tournament was awarded to Syracuse’s Carrier Dome rather than Newark’s Prudential Center, which is potentially a major loss in revenue as a result of the NCAA’s ban. Of course, an injunction is just that, an injunction. It does not carry the force of law if the case is ultimately adjudicated and comes out in favor of the state. At that point, we presume that New Jersey will once again ban its championship events there. Cat and mouse, anyone?
- The much-discussed split between the Catholic 7 and the Big East is expected to happen today. Reports from late last night suggest that the seven schools will leave the conference on June 30, keep the Big East name, and have the right to play their conference tournament at Madison Square Garden. [Ed. Note: Who is negotiating on behalf of the Big East? Billy Hunter?] The addition of other schools (reported to be Butler and Xavier as well as probably Creighton) to the Catholic 7 would make a ten-team conference for next season with the possibility of the addition of two more teams (possibly Dayton and St. Louis) for the 2014-15 season. As we have stated before, the basketball power of the original Catholic 7 seems to have been blown out of proportion (only Georgetown is a great program with the others ranging from solid such as Marquette and Villanova to DePaul, which is DePaul). The addition of the other schools will have a significantly bigger impact on the overall quality of the conference and should make it one of the top conferences in the country.
- With the Catholic 7 and the Big East (or whatever we are supposed to call them) on their way to forming earlier than expected it appears that Notre Dame might be able join the ACC next year if it can find a way to exit the Big East. The Irish are able to do this because unlike Louisville (headed to the ACC) and Rutgers (headed to the Big Ten) they are not joining for football allowing the new conference more flexibility in scheduling games. Notre Dame had previously indicated that they intended to stay in the Big East until the end of the 2013-14 season if the Catholic 7 remained part of the conference, but with the reports that that group will leave on July 1 it now appears that Notre Dame will try to follow suit in departing the crumbling conference early. As it currently stands Notre Dame needs to provide 27-month notice to avoid an exit fee (yes, Notre Dame doesn’t have to pay an exit fee; shocking that the Irish are given a different set a rules to play by). The Big East has offered Notre Dame the possibility to exit even earlier if they agree to schedule football games against Big East schools, but their commitment to join the ACC in sports other than football already required them to commit to play five games annually against ACC football teams making any further commitments unrealistic. We are not sure what Notre Dame can do to do get out of the Big East any earlier, but if they need to pay some money that contract with NBC would go a long way to paying the exit fee although it may not make financial sense since their football program would not be impacted.