In case you missed it late last Friday afternoon, the NCAA, along with the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL, sued the state of Delaware and the issue had nothing to do with the state’s personal extortionists known as credit card companies.  See, those crafty First Staters hidden along the east coast near Pennsylmaryginia have gotten all uppity and are planning on implementing legal sports gambling in time for this year’s NFL and college football seasons.  Unlike its previous foray into sports betting during the 1970s (an ill-advised sports ‘lottery’ of sorts), this time around the state has plans to offer single-game wagers using point spreads the same as one would make at the Bellagio or Wynn in Vegas.  Revenue would help Delaware close its projected half-billion dollar budget deficit next year and in subsequent years.  The professional leagues and the NCAA don’t like this development (what about the children???), so they’re suing the state to block the plan, stating that sports gambling in Delaware “would irreparably harm professional and amateur sports by fostering suspicion and skepticism that individual plays and final scores of games may have been influenced by factors other than honest athletic competition.”

Is the NCAA serious with this nonsense? We already know that illegal gambling is far worse than these leagues will ever let on, but does the NCAA truly believe that by eliminating legal, regulated gaming that there will be a greater chance for its games to become tainted?  Are we expected to believe that Delaware athletes, or those of nearby surrounding states, will suddenly become more compelled to make a trip to Dover Downs to lay some bones on themselves?  It’s complete hogwash, the NCAA knows it, and their hypocrisy by doing business with companies such as CBS who promote gambling on their web properties and allowing UNLV and Nevada (yeah, gambling happens there too) to compete at the highest level of NCAA sports is appalling.  Luckily, we’re not the only ones who feel that way.

Peter Schwartzkopf, the Delaware House majority leader, fired back today with a letter addressed to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell but cc’d to each of the other parties of the lawsuit.  It is fair to say that he holds no punches:

What I do not respect is the blatant hypocrisy of the professional sports leagues like the NFL that have now brought a lawsuit against Delaware. The lawsuit complains that legalized sports betting in Delaware will somehow undermine the integrity of their leagues. But the stance taken in these legal filings is belied by the close nexus between gambling and the leagues themselves. […]  We also learned that the NCAA, while threatening our Delaware universities with taking away home playoff games if sports betting moves forward, sponsored the Las Vegas Bowl last year, housing its players in hotel casinos where bets are taken on games.

Ouch.  He continues:

It is hard to imagine why moving forward with sports betting in Delaware will undermine the integrity of professional or college sports. Las Vegas has promoted sports betting for many years, so Delaware is not covering new ground here. When it comes to expanding state sponsored gaming, legitimate debate and discussion should continue among Delaware’s elected representatives and its citizens. But the self-serving, hypocritical pronouncements and legal threats by these for-profit sports leagues that have sued Delaware should be rejected.

The Supreme Court of Delaware already issued an advisory opinion on this issue in May, and it determined that so long as there is an element of chance involved in the system (i.e., it’s not 100% skill), then it is a legal mechanism.  To get around this, the plaintiffs filed their case in federal court in the hopes that they could get a different interpretation.  We wish nothing but the worst of luck to the NCAA and their cohorts on this one.

Two years ago former Utah coach Rick Majerus came out of retirement to take over the reins at St. Louis University.  We wrote at the time of his hiring that one of the key attributes of his teams throughout his career was that they tend to overachieve.  His teams at Utah were locks to win 20+ games and make the NCAA Tournament despite a relative paucity of elite talent (Keith Van Horn excepted).  We expected a quick turnaround at SLU, but it’s been a little slower going than expected – the Billikens have posted back-to-back mediocre seasons (16-15 and 18-14) and the only newsworthy event in Majerus’ two years there was from this particular 20-point abomination.  So he needs some recruits, right?  His first class was strong with several three-star players (including top 150 player Brett Thompson), but his second class fell off considerably (only one three-star), so Majerus might be feeling more pressure to sign players by any means necessary.

DiLoreto and Accomplice in Disguise

Gary Parrish today reported that 6’11 prep center Anthony DiLoreto has been offered a scholarship by Majerus and SLU, which wouldn’t otherwise register a blip on the national radar except for the fact that DiLoreto is facing two felonies for taking part in a bank robbery last year in Wisconsin.  Yeah, a bank robbery – as in, he drove the getaway car and provided the sawed-off shotgun that his 16-year old associate used to enter the Bremer Bank and steal the money.  Not only that, but DiLoreto broke longstanding ‘villain code’ by leaving his companion behind when the po-po rolled up for a nearby unrelated accident.  Showing Darwin-Award brilliance, DiLoreto then drove home and waited there until he was arrested several hours later.  He had originally committed to Cal Poly, but the school dropped his recruitment in light of these allegations.  (ed. note: this story would be much better if DiLoreto was from New Jersey)

Not Majerus and St. Louis, though.  And according to Parrish, not several other coaches either (from the Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10, A10, WAC, MWC and WCC), all of whom now consider DiLoreto a mid- to high-major prospect.  DiLoreto hasn’t yet overcome his legal problems, but he’s been working toward a plea bargain settlement that would presumably allow him to play ball again soon.  With an opportunity to grab an improving seven-footer, coaches are lining up to take a chance on him, proving once again that unless a player is actually in prison, someone will give him a schollie if he can occasionally throw a ball through a hoop.

It takes some doing to keep your name in the news some 14 years after winning a national title and some 12 years after ‘retiring’ from the NBA, but former NPOY and UCLA national champion Ed O’Bannon is doing his best this summer.  First came the Washington Post article in June that showed how, instead of cashing mega-checks like his contemporaries KG, Stack and Sheed from the 1995 draft, Eddie O. is now selling cars in the hot Vegas desert; that was followed by media exposure of the Lil Wayne song “Cannon,” where the lyric “listen close I got duct tape and rope, I’ll leave you missin’ like the (expletive) O’Bannons” was roundly ridiculed in the blogosphere.  Perhaps striking while the iron is hot, O’Bannon today sued the NCAA and its brand manager, Collegiate Licensing Company, in a federal class action suit claiming that the two entities illegally use player likenesses and images to reap millions of dollars in profit while former players see nothing in return.  Pete Thamel from the NYT writes:

A lawsuit that [O’Bannon’s] lawyers filed on Tuesday could change that answer and affect other issues surrounding the use of the likenesses and images of former college football and basketball players.  The lawsuit is for an undisclosed amount of money, but will bring into greater focus the N.C.A.A.’s $4 billion licensing industry. The lawsuit says that former athletes should be compensated by the N.C.A.A. for the use of their images and likenesses in such things as television advertisements, video games and apparel.

According to O’Bannon, he got the idea for this suit when a co-worker saw a UCLA game of his on ESPN Classic the night before.  When the colleague asked whether he received residuals for the showing of that game, he said no.  Whether or not this half-baked vignette is truly the reason behind the suit (it’s not), the general feeling is that this could be a major, major problem for the NCAA.  The fundamental question that a court will have to decide comes down to whether the existing NCAA policy that requires its student-athletes to sign away their rights to their likenesses in exchange as a condition for playing collegiate sports is legal.  O’Bannon’s argument is that such a policy is exploitative at its core, and Michael McCann from Sports Law Blog believes there could be merit to his argument.

The stakes of O’Bannon v. NCAA are enormous. If O’Bannon and former student-athletes prevail or receive a favorable settlement, the NCAA, along with its member conferences and schools, could be required to pay tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars in damages — particularly since damages are trebled under federal antitrust law.

Frankly, it’s about effin’ time.  As Dan Wetzel poignantly notes in his article breaking the story today, the players are painted into a (legally unrepresented) corner at 17 or 18 years old when all they’re really worried about is getting their eligibility to play college sports.  We understand why the NCAA doesn’t want its current players profiting off of their likenesses while an amateur, but why does the NCAA retain 100% of those rights for the rest of those players’ lives?  Why does Texas Western profit off of 1966 jerseys of #14 Bobby Joe Hill, but not the player (or the estate in Hill’s case) some 40+ years later?  Same thing with Jerry Rice’s MVSU #88 jersey?  Or, as O’Bannon stated in his complaint, why doesn’t he see a dime for an EA Sports video game licensed by the NCAA that clearly shows his silky smooth left-handed collegiate “self” running around making shots and ripping down rebounds as a 1995 UCLA Bruin?  It’s absolutely ludicrous, and we’d really like to see the NCAA take it on the chin this time around.

Epilogue: guess who is making this happen as an ‘unpaid consultant’… none other than the top NCAA gadfly himself, Sonny Vaccaro.  Call him the Highlander Folk School and Ed O’Bannon the Rosa Parks of NCAA reform…

UK today petitioned a federal court in Dallas to dismiss or remove Billy Gillispie’s $6M case for breach of contract against his former employer to a more relevant jurisdiction.  To be precise, the Bluegrass State.  What say ye, lawyers, were there minimal contacts to establish jurisdiction in Texas?  Gillispie did reportedly accept the Kentucky job offer within the state of Texas.  Is that enough? 

You may remember that Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy was reported to have had a little bit of trouble during a trip to Cincinnati during December. As embarrassing as that incident was, Kennedy may have been able to live it down in the college sports-crazed South if he could have just stayed out of the news. His Rebels have stumbled their way to a 12-9 record overall (3-4 in the SEC) and even managed to pull off a huge win over Kentucky.

However, Kennedy has continued to stay in the news with several more incidents related to the original case:

• First, Kennedy filed a counter-suit against the Cincinnati cab driver. This seems like an entirely reasonable defense strategy even if I hate that it is used so much.
• In a related ridiculous, but not unexpected, decision, Kennedy’s trial was postponed until after the Rebels’ season ends. Seriously, is there any other vocation where people can have the legal system bent so much just to suit their personal schedule? Jack Bauer doesn’t even get this kind of leeway.
• Then, Kennedy’s wife filed a lawsuit against the Cincinnati cab driver claiming that the case was affecting her husband’s sex drive causing her considerable distress (outside of the fact that she is living in Oxford, Mississippi).
• Finally, yesterday the police video immediately following the original incident surfaced. Let’s just say it’s not Kennedy’s finest moment.

While this isn’t quite the comedy goldmine that Mike Cooper and Carl Monday produced (quite possibly the finest moment in Ohio history), it has some moments that will follow Kennedy into opposing arenas for the rest of his career.

I’m here for the Big East/SEC challenge. I’m playing Louisville and Rick Pitino tomorrow. I was the UC head coach. I am going to be on national television. If I’m not standing there at 9 p.m. tomorrow, this is an international altercation.

While that itself is enough to make the video worth a watch, the officer’s response to Kennedy’s pleas for lenience because of his “celebrity” makes him worth of commendation.

You think we’ve never arrested somebody that’s made national media? We deal with the Bengals all the time.

Well done, sir. Well done.

As you may have heard the SEC has been having some issues with accusations of racism in its hiring practices. It looks like Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy, who succeeded Bob Huggins (a man who had his share of run-ins with the law involving alcohol)  at Cincinnati, may have taken it to another level early this morning in Cincinnati when he is reported to have attacked taxi cab driver Mohammed Ould Jiddou while shouting racial slurs. I think it’s pretty obvious what Kennedy is accused of saying (hint: look at the cab driver’s name). According to reports, the incident happened at 1 AM, which shows you that curfews don’t apply to coaches although Ole Miss may want to consider instituting one after this debacle. For his part, Kennedy (through his attorney) has denied all allegations and entered a not guilty plea.

To make matters worse, Kennedy was not the only Rebel official involved in the incident. William Armstrong, the director of operations at Mississippi, was also arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct. Although reports do not indicate that Armstrong attacked or insulted the cab driver, he was thrown out of a local bar for being drunk. [Ed. Note: Isn’t that the point of a bar?] It will be interesting to see how the Rebels’ players handle the situation as they face Louisville in Cincinnati as part of the Big East/SEC Invitational tonight and how the Ole Miss administration decides to handle Kennedy’s job status as the national media (cue Wilbon on PTI this afternoon) will be taking plenty of shots at the school and the SEC after this latest incident. Unfortunately for Kennedy, his career record at Ole Miss (52-27 overall, 15-17 in the SEC with 2 NIT bids) probably isn’t good enough to keep the university’s administration from cutting him loose in the near future.

(* for those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Mackey, click here for his personal saga….)

The Indianapolis Star reported tonight that former Hoosier standout Eric Gordon spent time living off-campus during last year’s tumultuous season  in large part because of the drug use that was occurring among members of his team.  He declined to name names of the users, but he did say the following:

Gordon didn’t say which players used drugs, but he said D.J. White and two others still on the team were among those who did not. Attempts to reach White and several other former players were not successful.  Gordon said Sampson “tried to stop it,” but the coach “was just so focused on basketball and winning and everything.”  Gordon said he spent considerable time with a family friend in Bloomington because the atmosphere around some players was so bad he didn’t feel comfortable on campus.  “Sometimes it felt like it wasn’t even a real basketball team because of all the turmoil that went on,” said Gordon, now a starting guard for the Los Angeles Clippers. “I was just thinking about that the other day. It was so crazy that all that stuff threw off a good season and made it a waste, basically.  “It was really tough for us to be around each other all the time off the court because we were so separate.”

photo credit: cartoonstock.com

If true, this confirms one of the oft-repeated rumors in Bloomington as to the seedy underbelly that led to the demise of Kelvin Sampson possibly even moreso than his ridiculous phone call scandal.  Certainly if Sampson had knowledge of certain players using drugs and he “tried to stop it” but ultimately turned a blind eye to the matter, then Indiana administrators – no dummies, them – would have caught wind of this problem and looked for any way possible to get rid of him.  This also explains the mass exodus that took place both prior to and upon Tom Crean’s arrival in Bloomington.

data source: statsheet.com

We do have one question for Eric Gordon, though, and this in no way should be taken to suggest that we think HE was involved in any illegal activities.  But, it’s a little hypocritical to throw a bunch of your teammates under the bus for a failed season when your own numbers dropped significantly in the last two months of the season, isn’t it (see above fg%)?  Perhaps he’d argue that his mind wasn’t into it anymore because his teammates were more concerned with snorting blow than beating Izzo, but we think, as the best player on the team, he should have taken some responsibility and looked into the mirror with the rest of the clowns to explain IU’s miserable finish in 2007-08 (8-6 after beginning 17-1) .

Update:  We wanted to address a post by the Indiana blog Cannot Falter, which accuses us of shooting ourselves Plaxico Burress-style by failing to mention that Gordon was suffering through an injury to his non-shooting wrist through the second half of the 2007-08 season.  They’re right in that we should have mentioned it as a contributing factor, and for that omission, we apologize.  They’re wrong in that we still don’t believe that was the sole reason for his precipitous decline in play, ESPECIALLY after Kelvin Sampson was fired (the wrist injury was on Jan. 29; IU’s first game w/o Sampson was on Feb. 23).  Not only did Gordon’s FG% drop to a disastrous 32 percent over his last seven games post-Sampson, but he also committed 4.2 turnovers per game in that span (from 46.6% and 3.4 tos).  Was that all due to his wrist injury?  Or did he quit playing and lose focus along with the rest of his drug-addled teammates in those games after his coach was let go?  You tell us.

Somehow in the libational haze of last Friday night’s self-induced dystopia, we noted a strange factoid surfacing across the ESPN bottom-line crawler.  Tennis great Jimmy Connors, he of the former #1 ranking and a current Santa Barbara resident, had gotten into some kind of row with another fan outside the UCSB Thunderdome prior to the Gauchos’ game with #1 North Carolina, and found himself arrested.  The story got lost among all the football and hoops this weekend, but we wanted to make sure that we remembered it correctly.  Turns out, we did.  From the NY Daily News report:

Tennis giant Jimmy Connors was arrested outside a college basketball game in California for standing his ground, police said.  Connors, 56, was ordered to move away from the entrance of the Thunderdome just before UC Santa Barbara and top-ranked North Carolina were set to play Friday night.  The eight-time Grand Slam champ, known for his fiery temperament in his heyday, refused and was arrested, police said.

(photo credit: MensVogue)

We can only speculate as to who the other guy must have been or what he must have done to elicit such rage in Connors so that he would miss the once-in-a-generation opportunity for the local school (of which he supposedly is a fan) to host the nation’s #1 ranked team.  Hmmm…

Just thinking out loud here, but who fits that description?  What nemesis is capable of eliciting such rage so that Connors would refuse to comply with police instructions and move his arse?  Who could that have been? 

Oh, right. 

(photo credit: Ron Waite)

Sometimes the stories that come across the wire are already so legendary, there’s really no reason to write additional copy.  From the Binghamton Press & News Bulletin:

A Binghamton University basketball player has been suspended from the team while charges of shoplifting and assault are pending in Vestal’s town court.  Malik Alvin, 20, was confronted by Wal-Mart security just after 2 p.m. Oct. 26 when officers said he took the contents of a box of 36 condoms without paying for them and attempted to leave the Vestal store, court documents say.  Alvin, a junior and newcomer to the BU team, eluded store security, but while on the run, collided in the store’s foyer with a 66-year-old customer, knocking her to the floor; she sustained a concussion, Vestal town court documents indicate.  Wal-Mart security told Vestal police they saw Alvin take two boxes of Trojan Magnum condoms from a store shelf. Alvin took the condoms into a restroom and stuffed the contents of one box — 36 condoms — into the front pockets of his pants, documents state. He reportedly left the other box in the restroom. […]  Binghamton University offers condoms for free in Resident Assistant offices and at the Health Services office behind Hinman community.

Perhaps there’s a limit on condom pilfering, or well, you know, maybe Binghamton Health Services doesn’t offer Magnums. 

In either case, the ladies at Binghamton U. had best watch their step or the greatest Don Juan the campus has seen since TK (above) rocked the leisure suits might just capture their purity in his venus flytrap.   

It’s already been an exciting few days with Marcus Ginyard‘s and Terrence Williams‘ injuries and it only continues to get better as the news came out today that UAB sharpshooter Robert Vaden was arrested in Bloomington, Indiana, last weekend for public intoxication.  What was he doing there?  You may recall that Vaden was one of the IU players who followed Mike Davis to UAB after his dismissal from Indiana University in 2006.  After a scintillating junior campaign (21/4/3 assts) at UAB and a last-minute decision to come back to school for his senior season, Vaden is poised to have an all-american year for the Blazers. 

Or is he?

From the Birmingham News:

UAB basketball standout Robert Vaden was arrested on a preliminary charge of public intoxication last weekend while visiting friends in Bloomington, Ind.  The news comes on the same day that Conference USA coaches voted Vaden, a transfer from Indiana, as their Preseason Player of the Year.  The Bloomington Herald Times, which reported the story Tuesday, said Bloomington police Officer Ian Lovan saw a man who appeared intoxicated and was pushing people on a downtown Bloomington street. The man, later identified as the 23-year-old Vaden, failed dexterity tests to determine if he was drunk and was booked on the public intoxication charge, according to the newspaper.  Vaden is on probation after a disorderly conduct arrest in Birmingham in 2007. Vaden was one of five current or former UAB players arrested outside a Southside club in late August of last year.  

This could be extremely problematic for the fortunes of Mike Davis’ 2008-09 team, which is predicted to make a run at the CUSA title and an NCAA Tournament bid.  A PI is usually nothing to worry about, but getting a PI while on probation is potentially an entirely different matter.  Even just the arrest with no sticking PI charge could cause Vaden’s original charge of disorderly conduct to re-attach (including any possible jail time), depending on the moods of his probation officer and/or judge.  At minimum, we would expect even a Mike Davis player to merit a suspension of several games for this stunning lack of judgment. 

As for the news breaking on the same day that Vaden was awarded Preseason POY by the CUSA coaches, well, we just can’t help but think that somewhere a snivelling John Calipari had something to do with this.