Last Friday, Linda Gonzalez, the older sister of former Manhattan and Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez, posted a column (link to our post because she took her original post down) that drew a lot of attention across the Internet and within coaching and journalism circles. In that post, Gonzalez listed ten columnists (some local, but mostly national) whom she felt wrote with an agenda and often did not report the facts as they are, but instead tried to twist them to fit the story. After the post started a mini-firestorm online, we reached out to Linda Gonzalez to inquire about her thoughts and reasoning. What follows is a 25-minute interview with Gonzalez that touches on her reasons for writing the piece, thoughts on the media in general and specific individuals, and her impression of what led to her brother’s firing at Seton Hall. We have to admit that Linda Gonzalez turned out to be a lot more reasonable than we expected over the phone based on her initial post and some of the rumblings that we had heard from various media members before we spoke with her. She also makes some salient points about the media as a whole and about the perceived agenda that some media members have.

Gonzalez has been a controversial figure in the media for years

Rush the Court: By now, most of our audience is aware of  your post listing the 10 writers you consider the most corrupt or biased in the country, but we don’t know much about you other than the fact that you are Bobby Gonzalez’s sister. Could you provide us with a little background information on who you are?

Linda Gonzalez: Before we start let me make something clear. There is a difference between a public and private person. I am not a public person. I used to be a public person because I was a columnist for a newspaper. That was a long time ago. Now writing is a hobby. I have a personal blog that I write. In fact, I have two. One I keep for notes and whatnot, but I have a personal blog that I write that people are welcome to read, but it is still a personal and private blog. I am a private person who lives in upstate New York. I am involved with my family. I live a quiet life.

I am a daughter, sister, aunt, substitute mom, nana, niece, and friend. I want for my family the same as you want for your own. I want my family to have  love, success and to live a meaningful life with purpose. I do what I can, whenever I can to help them and myself to achieve that. I’m sure anyone would do the same.

I have a mother who is 84 and a brother who is a disabled Vietnam Vet. My sister died 20 years ago and she had four children. Now her children are starting to have children so I have got my hands full. Bobby is a part of the picture, a big part, because when one suffers, we all suffer.

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One of the feel-good stories of the offseason was how VCU coach Shaka Smart turned down the lure of the big money and name brand appeal of multiple job openings at schools in traditional power conferences so he could stay at VCU. This was surprising to many because the odds of Smart repeating the success of his team’s miraculous run to the Final Four are exceedingly small. Still Smart appeared to want to stay to help build a premiere program rather than just a flash-in-the-pan success story that was never heard from again. Of course, the jump in his salary from $325,000 to $1.2 million per year also helped persuade Smart to stay in Richmond.

The million dollar man

Although the VCU student body was undoubtedly pleased to retain the head coach that was responsible for the the most successful postseason performance in the school’s history there was the obvious question of who would foot the bill. The taxpayers? That’s funny. The alumni and boosters? Partly, but they are not footing the entire bill. How about the students? According to some reports they may be the ones picking up the tab on this one. Earlier today the VCU administration announced that the overall student fee would increase by $50 per full-time student for the next academic year, which would largely go towards the athletic programs and generate $875,000 in additional revenue for the athletic program. Of that $875,000 nearly two-thirds would go to the basketball program (approximately $583,000). Based on the full-time enrollment numbers from the university that would be a little over $20 per student towards the basketball program.

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If you are interested in participating, send your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com as we will be updating these posts throughout the day.

General News

• Dwayne Polee to transfer from St. John’s: “In a possibly huge blow to St. John’s ability to compete in the Big East next year, returning freshman Dwayne Polee II will transfer from the St. John’s program” (Rumble in the Garden)
• Luke Hancock will transfer to Louisville: “Former George Mason forward Luke Hancock announced Saturday that he intends to transfer and play basketball at the University of Louisville.” (Card Chronicle)
  
• Gottfried strikes again — lands potential starting senior point guard: “Earlier this week, the new Wolfpack coaching staff pulled a surprise when they landed European power forward Thomas de Thaey over Washington and Wake Forest.” (State Fans Nation)
• UConn’s losing two scholarships, the NCAA will say it’s about bad academics but it’s really about bad basketball: “There are reasonable points to be made about Jim Calhoun bringing in too many guys who can’t cut it at UConn’s level, and we can have that discussion if you want. Just keep in mind that the reason UConn has lost two scholarships isn’t because guys like Eaves and Johnson couldn’t cut it in the classroom. It’s because they couldn’t cut it on the court.” (The UConn Blog)
• Eloy notches a double-double, leads Reach USA to win: “Eloy Vargas continues to do work on his tour of China, as he posted 10 points and 12 rebounds and added three blocks in a 79-72 win over Lithuania earlier today.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)
• Bobby Capobianco leaving IU, looking to transfer: The forward, who saw limited action, is still considering his options. (Inside the Hall)

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Earlier tonight The Big Lead posted a link to an article that Linda Gonzalez, the sister of former Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez, had put up on her personal blog. The post, which is now blocked, was titled “HERE IT IS: AMERICA’S TOP TEN WORST, LEAST CREDIBLE, MOST CONFLICTED SPORTWRITERS ( DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME AND KEEP FROM CHILDREN)”. That is the actual title of the post and it instantly created a mini-firestorm on Twitter. We are not sure what made Linda Gonzalez decide to block her entire blog (perhaps a call from Bobby?), but now it isn’t open to the public. Fortunately, we got to the post before she blocked it and were so enthralled by the ridiculousness of it that we decided to save the post in all of its glory.

Before we give you the list it probably would help to give you a little context about her post. Gonzalez begins her post by providing her own preface:

Preface: The ten media people in this post are writers and media faces who do whatever they want whenever they want to whoever they want wherever they want and in whatever way they choose. Responsibility is not taken into consideration, nor is the destruction wrought with lives affected innocent or otherwise and truth and accuracy are afterthoughts (maybe). They are known to be malicious, cruel, sarcastic, mocking and downright sadistic with ridicule
So…….Right back at ya.

It is pretty clear for her preface that this is in reference to writers whom she believes played a significant role in her brother losing his job at Seton Hall and she is more than happy to take her anger out on them with her blog (and some very disturbing “Prediction fantasy” ideas for what should happen to those writers).

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If you are interested in participating, send your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com as we will be updating these posts throughout the day.

General News

• Jamari Traylor Signs With Bill Self And Kansas: “After the news that Trevor Lacey is staying at home and attending Alabama, Kansas fans could use some good news and it looks like we have some. IMG Academy’s website as well as others are reporting that Jamari Traylor has committed to the Kansas Jayhawks.” (Rock Chalk Talk)
  
• Big East/SEC Challenge pairings: A full listing of games in this year’s inter-conference challenge.  (Card Chronicle)
• Regents Approve Crisler Arena Makeover: “The University of Michigan Regents approved the schematic designs of the $52 million makover to Crisler Arena. The overhaul will include new fan entrances, additional retail and ticketing spaces as well as a private club space.” (UM Hoops)
• Potential George Mason transfer looking at Louisville: “According to multiple sources, Louisville is one of the schools in the running to land current George Mason forward Luke Hancock.” (Card Chronicle)
• Trevor Lacey headed to Alabama: “The five-star shooting guard from Alabama has decided to stay home and play his college basketball for Anthony Grant and the Alabama Crimson Tide.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)

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1. Less than a week after he announced that he would be leaving Arizona, Lamont “Momo” Jones announced that he would be transferring to St. John’s. The move is not particularly surprising, as Jones had stated that he intended to move closer to home and the options in the New York metro area for a player of Momo’s pedigree are pretty limited. He could potentially play for Steve Lavin next year if the NCAA grants him a hardship waiver, since he reportedly transferred to be closer to his family due to his grandmother being sick. With Jones joining a very talented incoming freshman class, Lavin may have a team that could compete for the Big East championship in the next two or three years.
2. Earlier this week we took some shots at the ACC/Big Ten Challenge based on the fact that there were only two compelling match-ups. Yesterday the match-ups for the Big East/SEC Challenge were announced and we have to say that we were pleasantly surprised. The top match-ups in our eyes are St. John’s at Kentucky, Vanderbilt at Louisville, Florida at Syracuse, Arkansas at Connecticut, and West Virginia at Mississippi State. A few of the other games are also worth watching, but you can bet that all of these will be featured as “must watch” type games on our Set Your Tivo feature when the games come around.
3. Yesterday was one bad day for Wake Forest, as the female student who accused Gary Clark of sexually assaulting her while Jeff Teague guarded the door went on NBC’s Today Show to discuss the incident as part of a feature about how universities respond to sexual assault charges. The more damning accusation for Wake Forest was that officials at the school did not take her claim seriously and urged her not to press charges with the Miami Police Department, and instead let the school handle the matter internally. Wake Forest and the lawyers for the players have issued statements saying that the facts of the case are being misrepresented. We imagine that this is a story that will continue to develop during the summer and probably get uglier.
4. In an article yesterday in the New York Times about the Cleveland Cavaliers landing the #1 pick (likely Kyrie Irving), Harvey Araton discussed Irving’s family and how much they stress the importance of education. That isn’t a particularly big deal until he writes this: “Everybody in my family has gotten our degrees, our master’s,” said the elder Irving, a Wall Street financial broker who left a job at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center six months before 9/11. “We value the education aspect of it with Kyrie.” Had they not, Kyrie would have been with John Calipari at Kentucky last season, where the godfather, Strickland, works as an assistant coach.” We are not going to pretend that Kentucky is considered on par with Duke as an academic institution, but you don’t necessarily have to be a Wildcat fan to take issue with that passage.
5. Now that nearly all of the top recruits have committed to a school (any time you’re ready, DeAndre Daniels…) the recruiting analysts at ESPN put together a series of posts looking  back at this year’s class of recruits. They break them down by instant impact players, biggest surprises, and predictions for the class. We recommend keeping those bookmarked (or better yet, keep this post bookmarked) to look back at in a few years to see how accurate the recruiting analysts were.

1. The Big Ten is considering a proposal where it would increase the amount it “pays” scholarship athletes (ok, it is really more like a stipend). The basic idea behind the proposal is to cover “living expenses”, which have been estimated at between $2,000 and $5,000 per student-athlete per year. According to reports, NCAA president Mark Emmert back this proposal, which is interesting because at $300,000 per year for just football and basketball it would create a major divide between the big and small schools. Gene Smith, the athletic director at Ohio State and chairman of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, has come out and essentially said that small schools will just have to deal with being small schools while letting the big boys play a different game. We have a feeling that this could become a very heated discussion in the near future.
2. Every year it seems like a rumor starts about a major college basketball coach leaving the sanctity of a college campus for NBA riches. Bill Self was asked about this on a local radio show and said that he had “a better job than two-thirds of the NBA jobs right where I’m at, at Kansas.” Of course, some Kansas fans have taken this to mean that there are ten NBA jobs that Self would leave Lawrence for if he were offered that position. Personally, we think that is a little paranoid, but if our last coach did this maybe we would be paranoid too.
3. After several months of speculation former Kansas State forward Wally Judge has decided that he will be transferring to Rutgers. Judge, who came to Manhattan with high expectations as a McDonald’s All-American, struggled at times to live up to expectations and averaged a meager 4.0 points and 3.2 rebounds per game. Despite his limited production at Kansas State there were plenty of teams interested in Judge due to his athleticism. Judge will have to sit out next season, but will be able to join what should be a solid Rutgers squad thanks to some solid recruiting by Mike Rice recently. If Judge is able to live up to his potential, the Scarlet Knights could surprise some teams in the Big East in a few years.
4. Trevor Lacey, one of the last big-time recruits in the class of 2011 who had not committed, announced yesterday that he would be staying in-state to play at Alabama. Lacey chose to go to Alabama over his other three finalists that included Auburn, Kansas, and Kentucky. As you can imagine, Wildcats fans were not too happy that Lacey turned them down, but just because he went to a relatively weak program in Tuscaloosa does not necessarily mean that he cannot be successful according to John Clay. Now, the lone remaining uncommitted star in the class of 2011 is DeAndre Daniels, who was supposed to announce yesterday, but decided to postpone his decision another day. Daniels is reportedly considering Texas, Kansas, and Oregon although there are some rumors that he is also looking at Duke and Kentucky.
5. The teams that will participate in the championship rounds of this season’s “Legends Classic” were announced yesterday and will feature Texas, Vanderbilt, NC State, and Oregon State. For the record, we would like to reiterate our stance against having a fake tournament where preordained teams advance whether or not they win. As for the actual tournament, Vanderbilt should be the heavy favorites here especially this early in the year (November 19th and 21st) although Texas should have some decent talent that could make thing interesting. The other two teams are only notable for their head coaches with Mark Gottfried and Craig Robinson (aka President Obama’s brother-in-law) coaching NC State and Oregon State, respectively.

If you are interested in participating, send your submissions to rushthecourt@gmail.com as we will be updating these posts throughout the day.

General News

• Momo Jones will leave Arizona Wildcats, destination unknown: “So Jones will likely head back home, and might avoid sitting out a year by filling out a waiver due to a sick family member, Goodman says. An easy to guess destination for Jones is St. John’s, which is close to home and has former Rice High School coach Moe Hicks acting as director of basketball operations. With the news, Arizona now stands on par as far as scholarships go, making for no screwy situations in Miller’s over-recruiting.” (Arizona Desert Swarm)
• Lamont Momo Jones to transfer to St. John’s? (possibly): “Jeff Goodman tweeted earlier this evening that Arizona Wildcats starting point guard Lamont Jones – better known as Momo – will be transferring from the Wildcats program. AND that Momo Jones might seek a waiver to play immediately due to family illness… and he’d look to play for the St. John’s Red Storm. That’s just a rumor from sources, but in college ball, sources often know what they are talking about. Adding credence to the rumor: Jones is from New York, and played under current St. John’s Director of Basketball Operations Moe Hicks when Hicks was the coach at Rice High School in the Bronx.” (Rumble in the Garden)
• Report: Maryland Hires Dalonte Hill: “InsideMDSports is reporting that Kansas State assistant Dalonte Hill has accepted a job as an assistant coach on Mark Turgeon’s staff. No official word yet from MD, but you’d think they have to announce the full staff soon.” (Testudo Times)
• Star Baltimore Guard Nick Faust Recommitts to Maryland: “It’s Faustival 2011, everybody! Maryland’s star recruit, Nick Faust, had asked out of his LOI with the Terrapins’ two other recruits after Gary Williams retired. But now it appears he’s back in the fold.” (Testudo Times)
• Sterling Gibbs to Texas Provides Another 2011 Point Guard: “It’s been a long time since there was any good news coming out of the Texas basketball program. Well, if you aren’t Rick Barnes, that is, who received a recent $200k raise. Since late in the second-round tournament game against Arizona, everything has seemingly been downhill, culminating in the losses of Tristan Thompson, Jordan Hamilton, and the unexpected departure of Cory Joseph to the NBA draft. Monday evening, former Maryland commit and Rivals three-star prospect Sterlilng Gibbs gave suffering Longhorn roundball fans something to feel good about after a difficult two months.” (Burnt Orange Nation)
  
• George Washington Wants To Play Georgetown: “First it was Maryland AD Kevin Anderson clamoring for a piece of Hoyas action, and now, incoming George Washington AD Patrick Nero wants the Hoyas to face off against our friendly yet not as intelligent neighbor in Foggy Bottom. According to the DC Sports Bog, GW would like Georgetown to get involved in the BB&T Classic Basketball Tournament so that DC could have its own version of the “Big 5″” in Philadelphia.” (Casual Hoya)
• Cal Introduced as Dominican Coach: Coverage of John Calipari’s conference where he was announced as the coach of the Dominican Republic national team. (Kentucky Sports Radio)
• Vee Sanford is visiting Dayton today: “Former Lexington Catholic guard and Billy Gillispie recruit Vee Sanford is visiting Dayton today. He also plans to visit Loyola-Chicago and Marshall. Sanford spent last season at Georgetown University where he averaged 2.4 points in 6.6 minutes per game. Sanford decided to transfer because of the lack of playing time and the lack of opportunities to earn more.” (Kentucky Sports Radio)

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1. Coaches, administrators, and fans have been critical of unscrupulous agents for a long time, but were limited in their ability to get back at them. That group may now have a legal method to do so in the state of Texas as the state legislature has sent a bill to Governor Rick Perry proposing that agents and their runners could be charged with a felony and face up to 10 years in prison if their actions lead a college athlete to lose his or her eligibility. The details on how this law would work are not clear and we cannot even imagine how ridiculous these cases could get (many top agents are also lawyers) if they ever go to trial, but it’s certainly worth tracking in the coming months.
2. It is always unusual to see a coach who once worked on a big stage take a step (or two) down to continue coaching at a lower level. In the case of Jim O’Brien the cause is a little more clear. As many of you may remember, O’Brien, who had previously coached at Ohio State and Boston College, was forced to leave the former after the school was accused of multiple NCAA violations and was hit with severe sanctions including having their 1999 Final Four run vacated. In addition, O’Brien also received a two-year show-cause penalty (he pocketed $2.4 million from OSU after a judge ruled that he had been wrongfully terminated, however). O’Brien will be returning to Boston to coach at Division III Emerson College. We doubt that O’Brien will ever get back to being a head coach at the Division I level, but he is one of the few coaches that that has been hit with a show-cause penalty that has received a head coaching job at the NCAA level with Morgan State’s Todd Bozeman still being the only one who got a Division I job. Bruce Pearl might want to keep that in mind going forward.
3. On Thursday a segment on NBC’s Today Show will air (estimated at 7:45 AM ET) in which a (former?) Wake Forest student will speak about an alleged sexual assault involving members of the Wake Forest basketball team that occurred hours after the team was eliminated in the first round of the 2009 NCAA Tournament. We are not sure if she will name names on-air, but luckily their attorney already has: Mike Grace stated that former Demon Deacons Jeff Teague and Gary Clark were accused on that fateful night in Miami, but both players were completely exonerated by both the Miami-Dade County police and the Wake Forest code of conduct hearing council.  It’ll be interesting to see how this student spins the interview in light of this new information on Thursday morning.  Quick sidenote: leave it to Andy Katz (link above) to drop recruiting news into a story about sexual assault — another former Wake Forest player accused of assualt, Tony Woods, is reportedly close to transferring to Kentucky.
4. The schedule for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, which has grown in popularity in recent years, was released yesterday. Looking through the schedule we have to say that it’s underwhelming. Outside of the Duke–Ohio State and UNC–Wisconsin games few of the games look particularly interesting. We’re sure that ESPN will find a way to hype it up as being a series of great games, but don’t fall for it. There are three other games that might be worth watching (Miami–Purdue, Illinois–Maryland, and FSU–Michigan State), but other than that most of the games are close to unwatchable. This could be because the ACC is experiencing a bit of a dry spell, but the organizers need to find a way to keep this fresh (switching conference match-ups?) or these type of events will lose the public’s interest very quickly.
5. Doug Gottlieb takes a look at some of next year’s impact transfers (ESPN Insider required) and we have to say it is a pretty impressive group. Maybe we are forgetting how good prior transfer classes were or overrating the current crop (most of these guys left their prior programs for a reason), but this seems like an exceptionally talented group. Keep this group in mind when you are trying to figure out what impact the newcomers will have on college basketball next season instead of just focusing on the freshmen.

In the past week the salaries of Rick Barnes and Lon Kruger have drawn criticism from their respective state legislatures particularly in the case of Barnes. Throughout the country the fact that many coaches at top programs draw in CEO-like salaries has been a hot button topic in recent years especially with the prolonged downturn in the economy measured either in big picture economic terms like CPI or the more palatable unemployment numbers. That was never more clear than two years ago when Ken Krayeske challenged Jim Calhoun about his salary in the setting of the state’s budget deficit.

One of the points that Calhoun makes, which has been overlooked as people have focused on “not a dime back”  jokes, is that many of the top programs bring in millions of dollars to their universities and are not subsidized in any way by taxpayer funds even though they are at state universities. That, in itself, should be enough to combat questions about whether the coaches have the right to take in that type of salary. Many of the top programs appear to be bringing in enough money so that the coach’s salaries are at least fiscally possible and some would argue reasonable although many may also express moral qualms at the way that salaries are distributed much like they do with CEOs and their disproportionately large salaries.

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