Rush The Court

The NCAA released its verdict on the Renardo Sidney situation at Mississippi State this afternoon, and as expected, Sidney will not be playing at all during the 2009-10 season.  The question will be whether he will play in a college uniform next year, as the NCAA’s penalties against the 6′10 post player leave open that possibility.  From the NCAA press memo:

Mississippi State University basketball student-athlete Renardo Sidney must sit out the remainder of the current season and 30 percent of the 2010-11 season, according to a decision announced Friday by the NCAA academic and membership affairs staff.  In addition, Sidney must repay $11,800 in benefits received from preferential treatment. The sanction for 2010-11 is estimated to be nine games.

Considering the allegations against the Sidney family — that they were essentially living rent-free for a couple of years in high-end properties in Los Angeles — this seems like a relative slap on the wrist.  What it really means, though, is that the NCAA couldn’t prove any (or much) 0f it.  What they could prove, however, was that Sidney and his father lied about a recruiting trip that they took to LA in 2006 to visit schools.  Their answers of “I don’t know” didn’t pass muster with the factfinders, and therefore the “unethical conduct” charge that the NCAA threw at him stuck.  The penalty for that transgression has mostly been repaid: Sidney must sit out a full season at Mississippi State.  MSU’s final home game is tomorrow, and the Bulldogs will have at most a  handful of games ahead in the postseason.  Put simply, this year is already shot for Sidney, so the timing of the penalty coming now doesn’t really feel like that much of a loss.

Will We Ever Actually See Sidney in This Uniform?

The second piece of the punishment handed down — a nine game suspendion next season and $11,800 in repaid benefits (based on extra Reebok gear, unsanctioned workouts and a family credit line) – seems light as well.  The nine games, sure.  But only $12k in bennies?  Either the NCAA needs to hire better private investigators or the Sidney family (and their attorney Donald Jackson) are experts in deception and obfuscation.   One would think that a family on the take for a shoe company as powerful as Reebok and a player broker as influential as Sonny Vaccaro would hit that amount in a good weekend.  After all, the risk/reward on a player like Sidney is calculated in multiples of seven figures, not five. 

Speaking of which, the spectre now hanging over the Bulldog program is what will Sidney decide to do now?  Their attorney says that they already plan on appealing, but that’s unlikely to get them anywhere better than they are now.  This summer Sidney will be draft-eligible as a player one year removed from high school, but the year away from the game has not helped his NBA draft stock.  At one time considered the top player in the Class of 2009 (ahead of John Wall, Derrick Favors and DeMarcus Cousins), he is now listed in the mid- to late-second round on two top NBA Draft sites.  Some of that drop is attributable to his play during his senior year where many scouts felt he was unfocused and coasting, but undoubtedly many are now wondering how the one-year layoff from competitive basketball has affected a player already prone to loafing. 

The NBA will certainly find space on a roster for a 6′10, 270-lb beast with a soft touch around the rim, even if on a flier.  But staying at Mississippi State another year is another interesting option.  Current MSU patrolman and college basketball’s all-time leading shot blocker, Jarvis Varnado, will finish his career this spring along with starting guard Barry Stewart, but the Bulldogs should return the core of a relatively young bubble team this season.  Should Sidney choose to return, he could slide right into Varnado’s warm post spot with the hope that the roster continues to develop (including 7′1 project John Riek). 

Most of the national news on Florida State losing its appeal today for academic misconduct will focus on the impact on the football program and, in particular, the fourteen wins that Bobby Bowden may lose. But there are basketball implications in this decision today as well. According to the NCAA’s Public Report, academic tutors at the school provided answers and other assistance to tests and assignments for student-athletes in ten different sports, including men’s basketball. The school will be on probation in all ten sports until 2013, and Leonard Hamilton’s team has already self-imposed a one-scholarship reduction last year and apparently this year as well (FSU has eleven players on scholarship this season).  It’s also likely that FSU will have to vacate a number of wins from the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons when the ineligible player(s) competed in games, but it’s currently unclear who those player(s) are and how many wins that will be (FSU won a total of 42 games those two seasons).  All in all, the penalties for the basketball program aren’t huge, but they’ll have to be careful to make sure there are no other problems in the next three years or face the prospect of becoming a multiple offender (where the penalties are more severe).

Earlier today USC announced the self-imposed penalties to shield their football their basketball program, stemming from the whole O.J. Mayo/Rodney Guillory situation.  Guillory, an events promoter in Los Angeles who seems to frequently be involved with high school basketball players making their way to college, helped guide Mayo to USC during Mayo’s recruitment, and allegedly acted as a bagman between a sports agency and Mayo with thousands of dollars of cash and merchandise finding its way into Mayo’s hands.  You probably recall that former USC coach Tim Floyd was accused of greasing Guillory’s palm to the tune of a thousand bucks for his services, and quickly repaired to the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets about fourteen seconds after that accusation was publicly made.  Mayo’s end of the  bargain in all of this (besides playing ball) was that he’d sign with the agency Guillory was “representing.”  All of this is alleged, of course — though Mayo did indeed sign with that agency after he left USC after one year for the 2008 NBA Draft.

The big daddy among the sanctions that USC is self-imposing is that there will be  no postseason this year at all — no Pac-10 Tournament, no NCAA.  It has also vacated all 21 of their wins from the 2007-08 Season of Mayo, and will give back the dough they “earned” from their first-round loss to Kansas State in the NCAA Tournament that year.

Look at that last paragraph again, and behold the inherent logical absurdity.  We’ll return the tournament cash and vacate the wins from 2007-08…but we won’t go to the post-season this year.  In other words, what happened was in the past, and as part of the mea culpa, we’re punishing people involved in our program today.

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As reported by AOL Fanhouse (is just Fanhouse now?), South Florida’s basketball program is under NCAA investigation based on multiple accusations of impropriety that the same outlet reported two weeks ago.  The allegations mostly derive from excessive transportation, tickets to NBA games and ‘open’ practices during dead periods held under strength coach Terrelle Woody’s purview.  Woody came to USF as part of a package deal with the well-traveled and much-maligned Gus Gilchrist, whom we still haven’t forgiven around these parts for using the tragic Virginia Tech shootings as an excuse to bail from his prep commitment to that school.  Comedy springs from tragedy, though, and how funny would it be if Gilchrist’s handler ended up with his star player suspended and his employer put on probation?  Of course that’s unlikely, because as often happens in these situations, at the first sign of trouble the traveling circus of Woody/Gilchrist will bolt for greener pastures leaving the angry townspeople of Tampa holding the bag.   

In other encouraging news out of Stan Heath’s program, transfer guard Anthony Crater, who was set to begin play on December 13 against Central Michigan, has reportedly failed his second drug test at the school and will have to sit out 4-6 additional games, depending on how USF interprets their internal substance abuse policy.  The article also notes that Crater failed a drug test while a freshman at Ohio State last year, which means that the talented but troubled point guard who has also been arrested for possession (later dropped) and suspected of involvement in theft of $8000 of property while in Tampa (but never charged) has failed three drug tests in just over a calendar year.  Heath is on the record stating after Crater’s arrest for possession last January that players such as he only get so many chances: “You get chance No. 1, you get chance No. 2; at some point in time you’ve got to make adjustments that the program is bigger than what you are.”

Where does the adjustment/program size threshold start again, Coach Heath?  Because, by our count, this is chance #5. 

1. Failed drug test at Ohio State (allegedly)
2. Failed drug test at USF (definitely)
3. Arrest for marijuana possession (definitely)
4. Primary suspect in theft of $8000 of property, with an on-record admission of an earlier theft (definitely)
5. Failed second drug test at USF (definitely)

Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised.  Heath also allowed another basketball vagabond/troublemaker, Mike Mercer, back onto the team this season even after he was arrested twice last year for public consumption and marijuana possession.  The reason?  He graduated in August.  Well that… and the fact that he provides defense and depth at the guard position for his 7-1 Bulls. 

Sometimes the NCAA’s policies, procedures and processes are so difficult, convoluted and nonsensical that it’s difficult to even begin to explain why they don’t make much sense.  It took a little while, but we think we have a grasp on the latest chapter in NCAA idiocy covered.  It all comes down to transparency (or the NCAA’s lack thereof).  Quite possibly the biggest complaint that fans of schools investigated (or not investigated) by the NCAA is that the whole process — from how schools are targeted and chosen for investigation, reviewed, and ultimately adjudicated, is shrouded in a veil of secrecy.  Sometimes college sports fans must feel like the NCAA is actually a poorly-functioning arm of the NSA given the way they operate.  Some of the more notorious examples of what we’re talking about from the last few years are no surprise to anyone.  For example:

• How does Corey Maggette not get Duke into hot water after the fact, but Derrick Rose does for Memphis?
• John Wall and Ryan Kelly, anyone?
• Eddie Sutton took down Kentucky over payoffs but Kelvin Sampson is banned for five years over phone calls?
• Why are some legal doctrines (strict liability) selectively used in some situations but not in others?
• Can anyone, anyone at all, explain Reggie Bush/USC?

There are many others, but those are a few off the top of the dome.  Why do things seem so inconsistent?  How does the NCAA decide to investigate, and when they do so, what are the criteria they use to make their findings?  Do they use generally agreed upon principles of auditing, quasi-legal doctrine, administrative law, or something else they make up as they go along?  How are penalties assessed and what are the mitigating factors that they consider in making those decisions?  Is every single case a uniquely-judged “case-by-case” situation, making it all but impossible to draw generalizations about how the NCAA rules enforcement folks will act in a given situation?  Or is that ultimately the point — to make it so confusing and inconsistent that any school can get in serious trouble for nearly anything (or the perception that you can)?  Now that we think about it, we already go through this seemingly every year in terms of what the NCAA Selection Committee wants to see on NCAA Tournament bubble teams’ resumes — it shouldn’t surprise us that things out of this shop often seem wildly arbitrary and inconsistent.

So here’s the point of this post.  Memphis announced today that it had learned what the NCAA’s response to its appeal in the Derrick Rose SAT scandal was, but according to some bylaw borrowed straight from the Soviet playbook, the school is not allowed to make the response public nor can it/will it (?) discuss these findings.  Memphis is undoubtedly doing some grandstanding here, but it doesn’t change the absurdity of the NCAA’s rule keeping their logic and reasoning secret.  So we now sit in Act III of theater of the absurd while we wait for someone at Memphis to leak the information contained within the document (which can only be viewed on a secret, read-only website administered by the NCAA — sadly, this is not a joke), or for an enterprising news organization to force the NCAA to release the document under open records laws in Tennessee (as recently occurred in a Florida State cheating scandal).

Does the NCAA not understand that operating in this manner in no way engenders public trust and faith in the fairness and equitable nature of the system?  Do they not see that, regardless of the strength of their argument on the merits, John Q. Fan reads this and can only conclude that the NCAA is hiding the ball so as to get its way in the end?  Are they too dense to realize that a simple and consistent application of rules and policies are the first step toward removing much of the thinly-veiled cynicism that those still following big-time college sports have for it?

RTC Applauds RC Johnson's Audacity

It would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic.  Kudos go to Memphis Athletic Director RC Johnson for telling the world that the NCAA has responded to his appeal, but sorry, we’re not allowed to tell you what they said or the logic they use for agreeing/disagreeing with it.  That’s incredibly rich, and it gets exactly the right message across.  Memphis is going to pay for this anyway — the NCAA has already cornered itself on the strict liability argument — but at least they’ll go down lobbing shots across the bow at the absurdity of it all.

Several players around the country other than John Wall are awaiting various forms of clearance before they’ll be back in uniform.  Let’s take a quick look at some of the more prominent names.

Nolan Smith, Duke.  Smith will make the extremely thin Duke backcourt downright transparent for two games as he will sit for playing in an unsanctioned summer league in the Washington, DC, area over the summer.  During tonight’s 84-48 win against Findlay, Smith did not play in the first half so his teammates could adjust to playing without him.  He will miss the season opener next week against UNC-Greensboro and Duke’s second game against Coastal Carolina.  Karmic equilibrium for this?

Trevor Mbakwe, Royce White & Devron Bostick, Minnesota.  Tubby Smith announced indefinite suspensions for White & Bostick today, joining teammate Trevor Mbakwe who was already on suspension for allegations involving an attack on a woman in Miami last April.  White, another member of a stellar recruiting class along with Mbakwe, is a 6′8 power forward who is accused of stealing merchandise from a Macy’s at the Mall of America and pushing a security officer down to the ground. Bostick, a senior forward who averaged 4/2 in eleven minutes per game last season, is being suspended for an undisclosed violation of team rules.  All in all, what was looking to be a very promising season in Minnesota is not off to a good start.  Smith was ambiguous about how long White & Bostick would be out of action, but Mbakwe will not be cleared (if at all) until after his court date in Miami on Dec. 14.

Stefan Welsh, Arkansas.  Stefan Welsh also sat out his team’s first exhibition game last night against Dillard (not Al, we hope).  John Pelphrey indicated that Welsh, a starter for 14 games last season who averaged 12/3 in just under thirty minutes per game, may be out for the rest of the semester for undisclosed reasons.  This suspension comes in front of the anticipated set of suspensions that Pelphrey will soon mete out based on rape allegations in September where as many as five scholarship players could be suspended for several games.  That assumes, of course, that the special prosecutor now assigned to the case will not decide to bring charges against the players allegedly involved.  Yikes.  It could be a really rough winter in Fayetteville.

Renardo Sidney, Mississippi State.  We don’t have a scoop here, as Sidney is still currently not cleared to play this season.  But as we discussed last week, and as Jeff Goodman reported today, the Sidney family believes that they have satisfied the evidentiary threshold that the NCAA required, and think that Renardo will be cleared as soon as this week.  There’s no question that Sidney’s eligibility would change the complexion of the SEC and make MSU a darkhorse to reach the Final Four in April, but we hope that their statements aren’t borne of hubris, rather of confidence.

Kentucky fans are breathing easier tonight.

According to Lexington television station WLEX-18, the NCAA has cleared Kentucky’s insanely talented point guard (and pretty good dancer) John Wall to play, provided that a couple of conditions are met — namely, the repayment of travel expenses and the sitting of Wall for two games.  The games are UK’s exhibition this Monday night against Campbellsville and the November 13th regular season opener against Morehead State.  This all stems from Wall having played AAU basketball under coach Brian Clifton, who, even though he was not acting as one, was a certified agent at the time.  The expenses, totalling $787.58, are evidently related to costs in making unofficial visits to various schools.

We sort of figured that even if anything came from this at all that it wouldn’t be much, and that’s pretty much what has happened.  No word on whether or not the eligibility of any other player from that AAU squad has been adjusted.  In the report from Lex18.com, to his credit, Wall’s first offering of gratitude went to his mother, for whom Wall claims the wait for a final ruling has been particularly difficult; head coach John Calipari added, “John Wall is a great kid who always tries to do the right thing and his mother is a great lady.  I’m just happy this is behind us.”

There aren’t many things these days that could spoil the tidal wave of hope and anticipation that has consumed the entire state of Kentucky and Wildcat supporters the world over.  But this is definitely one of them. 

ESPN.com is reporting that issues have been raised regarding the recruitment and signing of presumptive freshman superstar John Wall.  Evidently, SEC commissioner Mike Slive has confirmed to ESPN that the eligibility questions are centered around Wall’s having played AAU ball for coach Brian Clifton, who was once a certified agent.  By NCAA rule, playing for an agent implies that you accepted illegal benefits from them.  It is being investigated how much — if anything at all — Wall would be responsible for.  Things are a little vague at this point, but Wall’s eligibility for any or all games would be affected by the amount of benefits he is deemed to have accepted, which he would have to repay.  It should be noted that Mr. Clifton claims that, though he admits he was at one time a licensed and certified agent, he forfeited his agent’s license in August of 2008 to commit all of his energies to his AAU teams. 

In the early going, there are two questions at the forefront of this:  first, if you play for someone, is it to be assumed that you accepted illegal benefits from them?  Second, if you technically have an agent’s license but aren’t acting as an agent, are your players violating NCAA rules?  Given the NCAA’s, er, interesting way of interpreting the rules, it will be interesting to see where, if anywhere, this goes.

More on this as events unfold.

Readers of this site will probably assume that we’ve turned to coverage exclusively about the University of Kentucky basketball program, what with all the news that’s come out of the Bluegrass State this summer/off-season — the firing of Billy Gillispie, the hiring of John Calipari, the recruitment and signing of John Wall and the accumulation of other big-time prepsters, the Rick Pitino/Karen Sypher fiasco, the eventual further misadventures of Gillispie, and so on.  And now, there’s this:

From the Sporting News…

In early July, [Assistant Director of Basketball Operations/Manager] Bilal Batley visited the UK practice gym to speak with a player regarding an academic matter…While there, [Batley] was seen gathering rebounds for one of the players.  The university determined it should be turned into the NCAA as a secondary violation.

Batley held the same post at Calipari’s Memphis program last year before accompanying him to Kentucky.  Before that he was a graduate manager at Indiana for a season.  The Kentucky job didn’t last long, though.  A few days ago, it was announced that Batley was no longer on the UK staff, evidently choosing to leave to go back to Houston because of an illness in his family.

Though no connection has so far been discovered or reported, a person cannot be faulted for asking the question regarding the possibility of a connection between Batley’s departure and what really does look like a minor violation.  It would be normal to ask that question if such an occurrence happened at ANY program.  When John Calipari is your head coach, though, it’s going to draw even more of a critical eye.  We know, nothing’s ever been actually pinned on him, but when you’re the only coach ever to have Final Fours vacated at the two schools you coached and when you associate with people named World Wide Wes, you can’t be surprised when you’re looked at a tad more closely. 

Did Calipari hear about the possibility of some kind of (even miniscule) violation perpetrated by this man, and order him out in the spirit of running a totally clean and pristine program at UK?  Or, if a bigger investigation is forthcoming, did the coaches convene and decide to oust Batley preemptively because some other things might be discovered?  Is there more news to follow from Lexington?  Nobody can say right now, and the possibilities mentioned above are total speculation and conjecture on the part of this blogger, as of right now.  There’s always the chance that — and you might want to hold onto something, here — the violation really is just a tiny thing that UK is playing it very safe (and understandably so) by reporting, and Batley really is going back to Houston for the aforementioned family illness.  If that is indeed the case, of course we hope everything turns out well for the Batley family.

I have one question, though.  Given what’s happened, the “minor-ness” of the violation becomes more compelling.  I mean, the guy grabbed a few rebounds for somebody while on his way to take care of something else; the NCAA is one bizarre organization when it comes to evaluating crimes and doling out punishment, but it would have to be utterly insane to attach any penalty to that.  People take leaves-of-absence from jobs all the time when family members get sick, and they’re often allowed to come back.  In fact, as most of you know, depending on who the family member is, your job is protected by law if you choose to take leave.  Jobs at programs like Kentucky don’t just grow on trees.  Maybe I’m misinformed on the whole thing, but a job like “Assistant Director of Basketball Operations/Manager” sounds like one that another person in the department could handle for a short time while Batley tends to the family issues, so that he could return when those matters are resolved (happily, we hope).  No matter whose decision it was, why is Batley now totally unassociated with the program?  Why would he seemingly remove himself or let himself be removed from such a plum position at a Leviathan program like Kentucky so quickly and so soon after taking the job in the first place, and over so minor an incident?

Who knows — right now, it looks like there’s no fire associated with this smoke.  But we’re going to stay tuned.

It seems as if the Derrick Rose saga is about to come to end, as multiple reports are suggesting that the NCAA will vacate all 38 of Memphis’ wins from the 2007-08 season as a result of using an ineligible player (Rose) and allowing Rose’s brother to fly around the country for free on the team charter.  The report, which will be published Thursday, reportedly will not provide for additional sanctions against the Memphis program, leaving Josh Pastner and his gutted program a fighting chance to emerge from the Calipari era with some dignity intact.

Speaking of Coach Cal (and UK fans will remind us that correlation isn’t causation), he now becomes the first head coach in the history of college basketball to have had NCAA-mandated removals of Final Four appearances at different schools.  You should recall that Calipari’s only other F4 appearance in 1996 was later vacated because of Marcus Camby’s prodigious affinity for cashmoney and bling.  This latest Derrick Rose situation makes Calipari programs two-for-two, and, interestingly, the Memphis Tiger program two-for-three on removed Final Four appearances.  Keep polishing that 1973 runner-up trophy, Tigers, it’ll be a while until the next one.

Here’s the list of F4 teams whose appearance was later vacated by the NCAA that 2007-08 Memphis joins.

• Ohio St. (1999) – Jim O’Brien
• Minnesota (1997) – Clem Haskins
• UMass (1996) – John Calipari
• Michigan (1992 & 1993) – Steve Fisher
• Memphis (1985) – Dana Kirk
• UCLA (1980) – Larry Brown
• Villanova (1971) – Jack Kraft
• St. Joseph’s (1961) – Jack Ramsay

Do you guys believe in karma?  This list is populated by four national runners-up and five other semifinalists, but the NCAA has to date still managed to avoid vacating a national championship team.  And without question, the Rose/Calipari Memphis team was the closest finalist on this list to actually cutting down the nets.  Maybe there was a little more magic to the Mario Miracle dagger than we understood at the time?

Southeast Missouri State was hit hard today by the NCAA with a three-year probation based on impermissible benefits for players, illegal observation of players during a dead period, and unethical conduct by their previous head coach, Scott Edgar.  Normally we wouldn’t do a separate post about this, but listen to what the ‘impermissible benefits’ on the men’s side amounted to: a one-time institutional fee paid on a player’s behalf for $239, and a one-time car ride by an assistant coach for 171 miles.  Um, yeah, good work there, NCAA.  SEMO will take a one-scholarship penalty for the 2009-10 season and will have to vacate all of its 2006-07 and 2007-08 wins from its record.  It’s good to see that the NCAA gumshoes are completely on top of these scofflaws!  So… um… what’s the latest on Reggie Bush and OJ Mayo, Mr. Brand?

What About This Former Head Men's Basketball Coach at IU?

What’s odd about this report is that nowhere in the entire ten-page document is Kelvin Sampson actually named.  For some reason, the NCAA repeatedly referred to Sampson as “Former Head Men’s Basketball Coach” at Indiana University.  The only other identifier is the infractions report number (287), so how can we be certain that they’re imposing these restrictions on Sampson?  What if Bob Knight tries to return next season?  Or Branch McCracken?  Everett Dean?  Will they too have to carry the weight of these penalties as a “Former Head Men’s Basketball Coach” as well?

All kidding aside, let’s all agree to not talk about the Current Assistant Basketball Coach for the Milwaukee Bucks ever again.  Or at least until some snivelling school desperate for Ws gets it in their heads that, “hey, we can hire a second-rate F4 coach for peanuts and all we have to do is track his phone calls!  We can do that!”  RTC sets the over/under on a collegiate job offer for the CABC of the Bucks at two years (2011). 

The news came out early this evening that USC head coach Tim Floyd has formally resigned from his post as top Trojan.  In a one-paragraph letter written to his AD, and interestingly, released to the Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger, Floyd stated:

As of 1 p.m. today, I am resigning as head basketball coach at the University of Southern California. I deeply appreciate the opportunity afforded me by the university, as well as the chance to know and work with some of the finest young men in college athletics.  Unfortunately, I know longer feel I can offer the level of enthusiasm to my duties that is deserved by the university, my coaching staff, my players, their families, and the supporters of Southern Cal. I always promised my self and my family that if I ever felt I could no longer give my full enthusiasm to a job, that I should leave it to others who could. I intend to contact my coaching staff and my players in coming days and weeks to tell them how much each of them means to me. I wish the best to USC and to my successor.

And richest young men.  When reports surfaced last month that Floyd paid cashmoney directly to OJ Mayo’s handlers in order to get him to Troy, his fate was pretty much sealed.  And for lack of a better word, how retarded must he feel now after he turned down a lucrative offer to coach at Arizona this spring?  Or his alma mater LSU a year ago?  Like Kelvin Sanctions before him and John Calipari at present, Floyd clearly hasn’t figured out that the key to long-term success along the blurred edges is to stay one step ahead of the NCAA gumshoes.

Instead of Floyd’s lasting legacy at USC becoming a deep tournament run led by OJ Mayo and  his SuperFriends, it will now instead be sullied ruminations of the urchin Rodney Guillory and a stack of benjamins handed over on a corner in Beverly Hills, just another soulless transaction like so many others on LA street corners in a given day.  But  if you think about the whole sordid affair, who ever believed that Mayo, a kid who had never expressed a bit of interest in the Pac-10 throughout his prep career, suddenly became enamored with the City of Angels without so much as a recruiting visit?  Who out there bought into that yarn that Floyd often related about Guillory showing up at his office one day ‘offering’ Mayo, and letting the coach know that ‘ OJ will call you,’ not the other way around?  The whole thing was farked from the get-go, and anyone with any sensibility about how this sport works knew it.

USC fans don’t seem very surprised, and they’re already pushing several names – Jamie Dixon (with his SoCal ties), Craig Robinson, Mark Few, Lon Kruger, Randy Bennett – but whoever takes this job will be entering a post-apocalyptic war zone, not unlike what Tom Crean found at Indiana last season, with  little to no hope and even fewer players.  The key difference between the situations, of course, is that there’s an awful lot more things to do in LA than there are in Bloomington, and this particular school isn’t exactly known for its hardwood glory (as IU is).  Still, the resources are there to become successful and god knows there’s enough prep talent in LA (even after UCLA takes theirs) to support another top 25 program.  But it’ll take the right person to get the job done there, someone who has the charisma and personality to sell the program to a fickle crowd as well as an ability to genuinely interest recruits on the school for reasons that don’t involve payment plans.  At least one commentator isn’t sure that it can happen.  He’s probably right.

Now, about that Reggie Bush thing…

As we mentioned in an update to yesterday’s column about how Memphis was handling Derrick Rose’s questionable test scores, more reports of questionable test scores out of Memphis are surfacing. As Gary Parrish reported earlier today, Robert Dozier’s SAT scores were questionable enough that Georgia refused to admit him. What most of the media has missed is that a third member of that Memphis team (Doneal Mack) that lost to Kansas in one of the most exciting title games of the past 20 years also had a suspicious ACT score that led Florida to deny him admission too.

While Memphis claims to be innocent in Rose’s case because the actions took place before he enrolled at Memphis and that they were unaware of potential inconsistencies in his test scores, the fact that they admitted two other players who had already been denied admission to other schools because of questionable standardized test scores makes the school’s claims of innocence more laughable unless they are going for another version of “don’t ask, don’t tell” with regards to SAT scores. Since John Calipari has already headed to Kentucky the administration at Memphis is left handling this mess.

The question is what kind of punishment, if any, will be handed down by the NCAA. Given the fact that they have done absolutely nothing with the mess at USC, it seems unlikely the Tigers will face any major sanctions particularly since there probably will not be any money trail like there was at Michigan where the Fab 5 played. It will be interesting to see if the NCAA and Kentucky police Calipari more closely than usual to avoid a Kelvin Sampson situation where he committed several violations at Indiana after committing similar violations at Oklahoma.

Memphis responded to the NCAA’s allegations against their basketball program, and surprise of all surprises, the UM athletic department doesn’t believe that it should be punished even if the NCAA stands by its position that Derrick Rose cheated on his SAT exam to gain his collegiate eligibility.

In a wide-ranging letter dealing with allegations involving both the women’s golf as well as the men’s basketball program, University Counsel Sheri Lipman revealed that there were rumors involving Rose’s ACT test score being fraudulent (remember, the NCAA’s allegation involves the SAT) prior to his only season as a Tiger.  This is what those lawyer types might call “notice.”  Yet, the Memphis athletic department determined through undoubtedly probing interviews with Rose himself and the coaching staff (whaaa??) that these rumors were unfounded.  Furthermore, the school claims that it attempted to get copies of materials from the applicable testing service, but was “unable to do so.”

Here’s an idea.  You could have had Rose produce the ACT information, and if he is unable to do so, as it were, suspend him until he does so.  That could have, at worst, solved the issue involving the rumor, and at best, put the issue to bed AND provided considerable cover in the form of due diligence when Mr. NCAA came knocking on the door a year-and-a-half later.  But Memphis didn’t do that.  We’d be very interesting in learning why not.

Getting back to the invalidated test score at issue here – the SAT – according to Memphis, the NCAA’s sole evidence that Rose had a stand-in take this test for him comes down to a forensic examiner’s review of his handwriting.  This review determined that Rose “probably” did not write the paragraph that the ETS uses to verify identity.  But according to Dana O’Neil’s reporting at ESPN.com, ETS only invalidates scores when two of the following three pieces of evidence are present in an examination: 1) handwriting comparisons; 2) comparisons to people seated nearby during the exam; and, 3) substantial jumps in scores.   We already know that the ETS (and the NCAA) is relying on #1, so we’re probably also looking at #3 as the other piece of evidence, and if you know anything about statistical probability, there’s virtually no chance that if Rose scored something like a 600-650 on a previous SAT administration, he then jumped up to a 950-1000 to gain eligibility.

All that said, Memphis is taking the painted corner position that, even if Derrick Rose cheated on his SAT, the program could not have known nor should it have known about such a fraud perpetrated on humanity.  In other words… sorry if Rose cheated in high school, but how were we to know? – we didn’t find out about the allegation until after he was already gone.  If Memphis is acting in completely good faith here, this is a fair argument.  But the only way we’re going to presume good faith is if we see more credible evidence that the university made attempts to get to the bottom of the ACT issue, and if they did no such thing, then they don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt here.  Where there’s smoke there’s fire, and if Memphis only scratched the surface of investigation in order to get Rose into school and eligible, then we don’t want to hear any complaining later if they’re nailed for looking the other way.

As for the other allegation involving the Memphis program, of particular comedic value is the Memphis response that the free hotel and plane trips provided to Derrick Rose’s brother, Reggie, were inadvertant administrative mistakes that “could have occurred for any member of the public traveling with the men’s basketball team.”  Right, because universities and athletic departments in particular are in the regular business of accidentally allowing thousands of dollars in freebies to be given to members of the public – especially, as it happens in this case, when the public is none other than the star player’s brother!  This is the less hot-button of the two major basketball allegations in this complaint, but there’s not much defensible here.

It’ll be very interesting to see what evidence the NCAA presents to combat these responses from Memphis.  Saturday is the hearing, and the university should expect to hear something later this summer.  It says here that UM isn’t going to like what it hears.

Update: Gary Parrish is reporting that Robert Dozier also had a “fishy” SAT which precluded his entrance into Georgia in 2004, and we’ve already discussed Doneal Mack’s rejection from Florida based on a test score issue.  Are there others?

Tough day in Lexington.  Not only did the former head coach turned Little Lord Fauntleroy (more on this later) sue his former employer for the entire value of his contract ($6M), but the Memphis Commercial-Appeal released a letter from the NCAA alleging two major violations at Memphis while under the dominion of current wundercoach, John Calipari.

One allegation involves providing free travel on the team plane for an associate of a player (valued at $2,260), but the much more serious allegation in our view is the one that accuses a Memphis player (presumably Derrick Rose) of pulling the old switcheroo with respect to his SAT examination.  Put more directly, Rose is accused of having someone else take the test for him.  The names are redacted, but see the relevant allegation from the NCAA letter below.

It goes without saying that academic fraud is something that catches the NCAA’s attention, especially when it involves a superstar player capable of nearly leading his team to a national title in his freshman season.  The letter doesn’t present the NCAA’s evidence, but you can rest assured that they wouldn’t come at Memphis with these allegations if there wasn’t a considerable evidentiary basis for it.  If Rose is in fact later deemed to have been ineligible during the 2007-08 season, Memphis’ record 38 victories and its F4 appearance could be vacated.

Calipari isn’t specifically named in the NCAA letter, but reports indicate that he has been called to Indianapolis to discuss these allegations on June 6th.  What’s striking is that this isn’t the first time that a Calipari player has had his entrance exam score called into question.  Doneal Mack was a former Florida recruit whom the school refused to admit based on his ACT score rising “too sharply from one test to the next.”  Of course, Calipari welcomed him to Memphis with open arms, and Mack has been a productive bench player in his three seasons with the Tigers.

And of course Kentucky fans are all too familiar with Eric Manuel’s sad tale of academic fraud from the late 80s which ultimately led to some of the darkest days in the program’s history. You have to wonder if the school’s frustration with Tubby and then Gillispie has opened the door to another era of the ‘anything goes’ mentality in Lexington.  After all, it’s been a generation since Eddie Sutton was run out of town; most of the students at UK weren’t even alive yet for that particular abomination.

One thing’s for sure about this whole mess.  Calipari is starting to remind us a little of Elijah Price in “Unbreakable” – bad shhtuff seems to follow him around wherever he goes, but nothing ever seems to get pinned directly onto him.  Whether this is something Kentucky fans are worried about is up for debate, but this has to be a tad unsettling for Kentucky fans over the age of 30. (or maybe they’ll queue up another YouTube video of John Wall, who incidentally pled guilty to B&E today, and say wtf)

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Now, back to Gillispie.  As we said above, he’s suing UK for $6M based on his firing without cause (sucking, apparently, doesn’t count).  What’s incredible is that, while Gillispie is battling the university over dollars, he continues to prance around Lexington area bars as if he were still the king of the castle.  From Matt Jones’ KSR blog over the weekend…  phenomenal.

After last year’s “Outside the Line” report, we figured that we wouldn’t hear much more about O.J. Mayo’s time at USC (Reggie Bush’s parents lived in a million dollar house and the NCAA didn’t seem to care). We expected that the biggest impact we would see was the reemergence of Taj Gibson and other Trojans who mysteriously disappeared during Mayo’s time in LA.

It turns out that Mayo might be leaving a more lasting impact on USC basketball than we expected as new reports indicate that Tim Floyd gave at least $1,000 to Rodney Guillory, one of Mayo’s handlers. [Ed. Note: Is Yahoo! Sports run by UCLA's journalism school? First Bush and now Mayo?] Given the fact that the NCAA is already “investigating” the Trojans’ basketball and football programs this could be a major blow to the USC athletic department. The question is whether the NCAA will bring out the whip against one of its glamour programs.

The new allegations (ok, we sort of figured this was going on) raise several others questions:

• Was Renardo Sidney (or his handlers) aware of this when he (they) made the decision to go to Mississippi State?
• How much does Tim Floyd regret turning down that Arizona payday?
• Do USC’s two 4-star recruits (Noel Johnson and Lamont Jones) have Memphis-style opt-out clauses in their LOIs? It probably wouldn’t work here, but I’m betting they are wishing they had waited this out.

Our guess is that this investigation will take at least a few years before the NCAA finally decides that they don’t have enough as information as the suits in Indianapolis are more concerned with hunting down college students using Facebook or other crimes against humanity. Actions that impact the integrity of the game? Not so important in Indianapolis. . .

Methinks someone is getting a liiiiiittle too specific with their social networking policy (such a thing exists?).

Indeed.  The University of Oklahoma, still smarting from probation based on impermissible phone calls by Kelvin Sampson and a pay-for-play scandal involving bogus jobs (not to mention former Sooner Josh Jarboe’s profane riffs on existentialism), has released records of its new social networking policy, which endeavors to outline exactly the kinds of news feed updates, photo montages and tweets that, as student-athletes, are not in the best interests of the Sooner Nation.  Specifically, from the AP:

[A]thletes are warned that their postings must comply with a code of conduct and can be punishable with education, counseling, suspension or expulsion and with the reduction or cancellation of financial aid. It warns athletes not to post pictures that would portray them negatively nor post contact information that agents or their runners could use to put the athletes’ eligibility in jeopardy.  “‘Partying,’ ‘drinking,’ and ‘getting wasted’ do not qualify as real hobbies or interests,” the policy warns.

We’ve yet to see the entire document of prohibitions, but hopefully the OU compliance folks managed to capture some of the other necessary guidelines to avoid the ignominy of NCAA gumshoes once again sniffing around Norman:

• do not wear a dress ten sizes too small (Blake Griffin)
• do not publicly refer to the NCAA as the National Communists Against Athletes (Brian Bosworth)
• do not shoot teammates, rob the coach’s house, distribute controlled substances to the FBI or gang-rape coeds (Switzer’s crew)
• do not pick up the phone if a coach is indiscriminately calling you whenever he damn well pleases (Kelvin Sampson)

That should do it.  There are undoubtedly more, but these will get the Sooner Nation started.

Tom Crean should be proud of his Indiana team this year – despite basically playing with D2 talent, the Hoosiers have used grit and hustle to compete in nearly every Big Ten game, even winning one against Iowa a few weeks ago.  Furthermore, the stench of impropriety and illicit activity that enveloped Bloomington during the tenure of Kelvin Sanctions is finally, like a soupy fog lingering to mid-day, starting to lift.  As a result, the phone lines at the athletic department are free and clear; nobody is hiding under their desks trying to, um, get a signal (yeah, that’s you, Senderoff). 

What’s that? 

Please Pick Me Up and Call a Recruit

Oh, maybe the stink hasn’t quite dissipated after all.  Perhaps there’s something about the phones in that place that is so magnificent… so wonderful… so awe-inspiring, that coaches just can’t resist the siren-like urge to pick it up and call someone.  Someone like, oh we dunno, just thinking out loud here, maybe… a recruit!  From the Indy Star:

Indiana University reported a secondary NCAA violation involving what the school said was an inadvertent extra phone call by the men’s basketball staff to recruit Bawa Muniru in October.  IU punished itself by not making any recruiting phone calls for a week in December, according to the report, revealed through a public records request by The Indianapolis Star.

Rumors and Rants had an excellent set of suggestions for the Indiana coaching brass, seeing as how they have loads of trouble getting all these confounding phone rules right (i.e., two calls per week, fellas).  Here are their best two recommendations:

The smoke signal: This is one of the oldest forms of communication known to man, dating back to ancient China, and it’s particularly useful for long distances. The smoke signal will be most effective when courting in-state recruits in places like Indianapolis, Richmond and Terre Haute.

The heliograph: Here’s another one where knowing Morse Code will come in handy. A heliograph was standard issue in the British and Australian armies until the 1960s, and involves using a flashes of sunlight to convey Morse Code with, basically, a mirror. It works, according to Wikipedia, to 50 kilometers or more, which is perfect if you want to get in touch with a player while recruiting in Canada or Europe.

Agreed.  Nothing says Ironic Indiana U. basketball like using smoke signals to communicate with each other.  Right, Eric?

Gary Parrish had an interesting story today about an incoming Tennessee recruit named Renaldo Woolridge, a 6′8 top 100 power forward from Southern California who has an impressive bloodline – his dad happens to be former Notre Dame All-American (1981) and longtime NBA journeyman, Orlando Woolridge.

(photo credit:  MySpace)

The story goes into considerable detail as to the younger Woolridge’s burgeoning rap career, replete with the obligatory MySpace page and stage-friendly moniker, The Answer aka Swiperboy.  And yeah, we agree with Parrish when he says that it’s obvious after listening to the tracks that this kid has a little more talent than your average hoopster/rapper wannabe.

What really piqued our interest, though, was when we listened to the song, “Baller Vol,” which quite clearly pays homage to Woolridge’s new school and teammates (listen below).  We may not have caught them all, but we heard players Scotty Hopson, Wayne Chism, Tyler Smith, JP Prince and coach Bruce Pearl mentioned.

Not to be a total wet blanket here, because this seems like just a kid having some fun – Woolridge even mentioned that UT may use his track for player introductions this year - but how is this not an NCAA violation?  Wouldn’t Wooldridge’s production company, Swiperboyz Entertainment, be considered a commercial enterprise?  And if so, aren’t there fairly explicit rules as to the limitations or usage of the university’s logo and likeness?  For example, look at Rule 12.5.1.3(c) from the NCAA Rules & Regulations:

But on Woolridge’s MySpace site, it’s obvious that he’s a Vol and even includes a conspicuous image of him flexing while wearing a UT jersey.

(ed. note – this picture has since been removed from Woolridge’s MySpace page.  Coincidence?  photo credit: MySpace)

And what about the shout-outs to all of his current teammates on the song?  Per Rule 12.5.2.2, did Woolridge get express permission to use their names on his product, and if not, does it matter that UT probably hasn’t taken steps to remediate that likely omission?

Given what we wrote last week about the NCAA’s worthless investigative arm, none of this probably matters because there are bigger fish for the brass to fry at Prairie View and UC Davis, but coming from someone who remembers how Indiana’s Steve Alford found himself in hot water for simply doing a charity calendar photo two decades ago, we have to wonder how all of Woolridge’s UT-centric rapping reconciles with the NCAA’s rulebook.