Last week we reported that the four major professional sports leagues and the NCAA teamed up to file a civil suit against the state of Delaware to block its plan to introduce single-game wagering on pro and collegiate sports beginning this fall – on September 1, in fact, just in time for the first college football weekend and the NFL kickoff ten days later.  (Let’s pause briefly to listen to the delirium from every ex-fratboy from North Jersey to DC for dramatic effect.)   Yesterday a US District Court judge in Delaware (who presumably likes the Eagles -6) rejected the cabal’s request for an injunction, effectively giving the First State the freedom to move forward with its plan throughout football season.  Trial, if it ever comes to pass, is scheduled to begin in early December.  Sounds perfect, right?

Not so fast.  Sensing that the Good Ship Moral Police was taking on too much water, the NCAA today announced that it will no longer allow its championships to be held in states that permit single-game wagering.  What an amazing coincidence!  While this new NCAA policy may hold significant sway in large, multi-faceted states such as California or Florida, Delaware is unlikely to see much of an impact.  According to the AP report on the matter, the state expects to take in approximately $53M in its first year of gaming; how much money could Delaware stand to lose from this policy?  To our knowledge, there’s never been a bowl game or an NCAA Tournament game in Dover, and there are no other cities of the size where the NCAA would host a major event.  The 1-AA playoffs involving University of Delaware?  Sure, but we’re only talking about a couple of games every few years there.  What else – non-revenue sports?  Yeah, keep trying. 

The fact of the matter is that this is a power play by the NCAA to create a precedent should any of its other states (e.g., ones that actually carry and profit from NCAA events) get the notion that they too should look into this sports gambling business.  Frankly, we don’t see how revenue lost could ever match what would pour into a state’s coffers, but that’s another argument for another time.  The important thing here is that the NCAA is not going to win this battle, and the East Coast will actually now have a reason to visit Delaware for more than the 30 minutes it takes to pass through it. 

We’ve been just as guilty as many others in speculating that Jim Calhoun, with his health issues and intolerance of alt-media gadflies, might be close to retirement.  A report today from the New Haven Register, however, dampens that assertion.  According to their sources, Calhoun is close to signing a multi-year extension with UConn, which probably belies the notion that Mr. Crankypants has any intention to retire soon.  Calhoun has one year remaining on his current deal which pays him a relatively paltry $1.6M per year (compared with the multiples of that other coaches are making), and if you hadn’t heard, he’s still making F4s at age 67. 

I have to admit that the news that our fair sport of college basketball was adding an additional (provisional) member from north of the border caught me off-guard (been too busy trying to figure out what the NCAA is going to do with Renardo Sidney or how many guys are going to try to dunk on Jordan Crawford). Before all of the “States’ Rights” people start flaming the comment section with xenophobic rants, you should check out the article, which lays out the reasoning behind Simon Fraser University‘s decision to compete with American schools (essentially that it’s cheaper to travel to play American schools along the Pacific Coast than fly from British Columbia to the East Coast where most of the Canadian college teams are located). The NCAA’s decision allows the Clan (let’s hope they don’t have home white jerseys) to compete with provisional status, but they can become a full member in Fall 2012. I’m assuming that their provisional status precludes them from competing in postseason play, but they will still compete in regular season games against other teams in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.

While the article by Joe Lemire makes it clear that we shouldn’t expect a sudden flood of Canadian college teams into the NCAA (or whatever they will have to call it), I would suspect that several other schools will explore the option. Although the entry of Canadian teams into American college sports will have a bigger effect on some sports than others (say goodbye to that NCAA hockey title Boston University), it could have a noticeable impact on college basketball. Competing at the NCAA level would mean that Canadian schools could offer full scholarships, which is something they cannot do under current CIS guidelines. This might be enough to entice some of Canada’s elite talent such as Texas recruit Tristan Thompson to stay within the country instead of heading to the US. Even though most fans would only be able to name Steve Nash if they were asked to list Canadian basketball players, our northern neighbors have also produced some notable players such as Jamaal Magloire, Bill Wennington, Greg Newton, and Todd MacCullough (ok, maybe it’s not that impressive) that might not have left Canada to play college basketball if they did not have restrictions on athletic scholarships at the time.

Well we know what Cartman thinks of this idea... (Credit: http://silentorchestra.wordpress.com)

The more interesting question is whether or not the top Canadian teams that Lemire claims to be “the equivalent of low- to mid-level Division I schools” would join the NCAA. As Steve Konchalski (the “Canadian Coach K”) notes it would only really make sense for the top Canadian teams to aspire to compete at the Division I level. Would it be possible for one of these teams to sneak into the NCAA tournament? Could one of those teams eventually develop into a Gonzaga-level power? It seems unlikely, but movement by Canadian colleges into the NCAA would inevitably lead to some shuffling within conferences with Northern schools and potentially create some interesting rivalries (can’t wait for the first international incident between the Cameron Crazies and a Canadian school). At the very least it is something to keep an eye on in the next few years.

News has slowed to a barely discernible trickle, but we here at RTC have a few things coming down the pike, so stay tuned…

• Renardo Sidney Saga.  So… the NCAA gumshoes had their meeting with the Sidney family last week, if you haven’t heard, and they’re asking for tax returns.  Most everyone in basketball believes that the Sidney family is dirtier than Roberto Alomar’s toilet seat, but they are entitled to a reasonable right to privacy with respect to their bank records and such.  Of course, the Sidney family has lawyered up and their representative, Donald Jackson, has already burned his race card lifeline in efforts to resist the NCAA request.  (ed. note: if that’s his only strategy, the Sidneys may want to look into alternative representation)  The problem with this whole situation is that the Sidneys appear willing to turn this into a high-profile civil lawsuit and, according to Gary Parrish, the NCAA would like to avoid that particular boondoggle at all costs.  Apparently the NCAA doesn’t want to have to defend its practices of selective enforcement, and we don’t blame them in the least on that.  So how will this end?  Probably the only way the NCAA knows how to deal with these cases – slap a relatively minor suspension (8-10 games) on Sidney, thereby leaving him eligible at Mississippi St. for the meat of the regular season and the postseason in 2009-10.  MSU is happy, the Sidneys are happy, and the NCAA crawls back to its lair once again with its tail tucked squarely between its legs, waiting on the next Andrelei Dravovic to declare ineligible. 
• D1 Athletic Revenue.  The Orlando Sentinel has been doing an analysis of college athletics and the recession, and they came up with an interesting list of all D1-A schools ranked by athletic revenue.  It’s no secret that football continues to drive revenue, as Kansas is the only basketball school in the top twelve of the list.  Still, of that same top twelve,  nine schools have shown a serious commitment to basketball and it’s probably no coincidence that the revenue derived from both major sports is putting them at the top of this list (Penn St., Auburn and Alabama need to get with it).  Our only problem with these lists is that they never break things down further by individual sports so we can actually see how much money, for example, the Florida basketball program generates! 
• Maui Invitational Matchups.  In one of the weakest Maui Invitational brackets we’ve seen in years, the following matchups are scheduled for early Thanksgiving week in beautiful Lahaina, Hawaii.  
  • Chaminade vs. Maryland
  • Cincinnati vs. Vanderbilt
  • Colorado vs. Gonzaga
  • Arizona vs. Wisconsin 
• We’ll take Maryland vs. Cincy in one semifinal and Gonzaga vs. Wisconsin in the other, with the Terps and Badgers meeting in the finals.  Although we think Maryland has better talent, we’ll go with UW to win its first Maui title in the mild upset on the islands.
• Quick Hits.  Fab Melo: going to Syracuse?  ETSU: RIP, Seth Coy.  Isiah Thomas: on the recruiting trail.  Two-and-Done: gaining traction?  Coach K: firing up the Olympic trial pool.  Goodman: 10 things he learned in July.  Jordan Crawford: more than a dunk over Lebron.   Parrish: why July evaluation camps need to stay.  Vegas Watch:  this could be very interesting. 

By now you’ve probably seen the list published earlier this week by The Sporting News naming their Fifty Greatest Coaches of All Time, across all sports.  And most likely you’ve at least seen that the legendary John Wooden tops that list, a selection about which this blogger has not heard one single detractor, not even one with a bad argument.  What’s interesting to me is the names from the college basketball world that follow Wooden on that list.  Here they are; I added two coaches at the end who did not make the TSN list (though one would think they might) just for the discussion:

The first thing that strikes me is where John Wooden ranks on the all-time Division 1 wins list.  21st??!?  It’s always been obvious that in these lofty heights number of wins has never been a great indicator of coaching ability, since teams just didn’t play as many games until the 80s when that number really took off.  That would seem to make winning percentage a more important statistic.  But not on this list, it appears.  If that statistic mattered here, you wouldn’t expect Dean Smith to be quite as high, and you’d expect Adolph Rupp to be higher; you would certainly expect Roy Williams to at least make the list.  Final fours?  Nope.  Dean Smith would be appropriately stationed, but Mike Krzyzewski would be higher along with Rupp, and again you’d think Williams would get on.   And so on.  No single major statistic appears to have guided the thinking, here.

The question is, does this reduce the validity or credibility of the list?  According to TSN, their panel consisted of “seven World Series-winning managers, four Super Bowl champion coaches, and the winningest coaches in the NBA, NHL, and college basketball.”  I’m not saying they necessarily got anything wrong — who better to ask about coaches than players and other coaches?  It is at least obvious that there’s only one thing the panel considered, at least in terms of how the best coaches in college basketball fell on the list — reputation.

No contest. (credit: scout.com)

The selection of Wooden at the top cannot be argued because he’s got the reputation, the aura, and too much of the overall look of the statistics on his side.  After that it’s a crapshoot depending on what you think is the most important determiner of coaching greatness.  To the TSN panel, it’s something akin to curb appeal that influenced them.  Would Bob Knight not have been higher than 16th on an all-time coaches list were it not for his acerbic nature?  Would Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith have been closer together were it not for Rupp’s reputation (whether you think he deserves it or not) as a bigot, and/or Smith having an image bordering on — dare I say it — holy?  Is Roy Williams still being punished for his inability to win the big one while at Kansas?  And what of Pat Summitt?  She’s the only one who could even challenge Wooden in terms of college basketball coaches; her numbers are barely conceivable, and then you throw in her 1oo% graduation rate (yes, that’s right, every Tennessee player on her watch who has completed their eligibility there has also graduated).  Should she be higher than 11th on the whole thing?  And if you want to talk about the effect of reputation on this list, there probably isn’t a better example than the appearance of the late great Pete Newell.  Only 357 games coached, a single title, only two Final Fours, and the lowest winning percentage on the coaches on the above list.  But he goes and forms the Big Man Camp — and eventually what he would call the Tall Women’s Basketball Camp (I guess “Big Woman’s Camp” wasn’t an appealing name for such a place) — and finds a way to coach players in a way that didn’t directly show up as wins and losses, and here he is, on the overall list ahead of people like Joe Torre, Tom Osborne, Toe Blake, and Chuck Daly.  In addition, if you ask any coach, they’ll tell you that, before he died, you’d have been hard-pressed to find a better coach and man than Mr. Newell.  Does he belong on the list?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know one thing — the list generates great discussion (especially in the summer lull), so come on…let’s hear from the Duke fans who think Coach K got screwed, let’s hear from the UNC fans who think Smith-Williams should be 1-2.  Let’s hear from the UK fans who think Rupp is too great to be even considered on such a list.  Knowing the passion of college hoop fans and the readers of this site, it should be good.

Things were VERY quiet over the weekend, but as always, RTC brings you the hostess with the mostess…

• Summer Hypocrisy Trail.  We spend a lot of time around here criticizing the NCAA, its administrators, coaches and enablers for their acute sense of self-serving righteousness mixed with hypocrisy as it relates to their various policies of doing business.  A couple of stories caught our eye to this effect over the past few days.  The first was Pete Thamel’s NYT piece exposing how summer camp organizers are charging exorbitant fees to coaches for the privilege of watching its players in the stands (along with a fancy-schmancy binder of player names and hometowns, whoop-de-damn-do).  Prices range from $175-$350, depending on the locale, but coaches are uniformly annoyed with such a major additional expense to their recruiting budgets.  Vandy’s Kevin Stallings has taken the lead on criticizing the practice (he refused to pay the fee at a Memphis camp, turning around and driving back home), but predictably, those coaches who get their bread buttered by virtue of cozy relationships with the camp organizers (K, Howland, Matta, etc.) will not speak out publicly about this trend.  And as Dana O’Neil showed in her article about a coach’s banquet in Las Vegas put on by camp organizers, there’s often very little accountability with respect to where all these fee dollars are flowing.  Organizers make claims about funding AAU trips, tournaments and “feeding their families,” but as we’ve seen with allegations involving Renardo Sidney and others, the paper trail on where money ends up is often ambiguous and fraught with obfuscation.  Of course, none of this should surprise you or us – the system is so completely dirty at the AAU level that we truly wonder if the NCAA will ever succeed in rooting it out.  The genie is already out of the bottle, and for every World Wide Wes out there, a hundred others are gunning to take his place.  Mike DeCourcy, for what it’s worth, thinks that the coaches should just STFU, and he’s probably right.  Still it doesn’t change the fact that, without regulation of these camps, nobody except the organizers really know what these dollars are being used for.  
• Summer of Lawsuits.  An odd lawsuit has arisen over a clause in a head coach’s former contract that unequivocally states that he may not continue to recruit players he was recruiting at his old school if he leaves for a new school.  Matt Brady, the second-year head coach at James Madison and formerly at Marist, was sued by Marist for violating what many people suggest is an unenforceable clause that they’ve never seen employed elsewhere.  Creative contract negotiations or willful ignorance of the law?  Regardless, four players whom Brady was recruiting at Marist – Julius Wells, Devon Moore, Andrey Semenov and Trevon Flores – ended up at JMU instead last season, although only Wells had signed a national letter of intent (which Marist released him from).  Of course, the key issue that the NY state court will consider is whether there is an obligation on the part of the coach over third parties (the recruits); we can’t imagine that the long arm of any contract would suggest such a thing, but we’re not lawyers, we just play them on tv. 
• UNC Title Tilt.  If you’re of the opinion that the 2005 NCAA Champion UNC squad would mop the floor with the 2009 NCAA Champion NCAA squad, as we are, then you’ll have an opportunity to see players from those two teams settle the debate at the UNC Pro Alumni Game on September 4 at the Dean Dome.  Nine players from the ’05 team – Raymond Felton, Sean May, Rashad McCants, Byron Sanders, Reyshawn Terry, Jackie Manuel, Quentin Thomas, Marvin Williams and Jawad Williams – are scheduled to appear, along with six players from last year’s champs – Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson, Danny Green, Bobby Frasor and Michael Copeland.  The scrimmage will allow for ad hoc division of rosters, and we’d expect to see several possessions where the starting lineups for each team are on the floor facing off against each other.  For the record, if the two teams actually were to play at full strength, the frontline of May and M. Williams would dominate the Hansbrough/D. Thompson side, especially with the superior playmaker Felton (over Lawson) distributing the ball.  The 2005 Heels weren’t as dominant in the NCAAs as the 2009 version, in part due to a lack of experience, but the talent on that team was far better. 
• Quick Hits.  2012 Olympic team: projecting a roster.  Ben Howland: on notice.  Bob Knight: teacher, leader, comedian.  Katz: stock watch for 2010 prospects.  Lebron Tape: what was it worth?  Florida St.: fine, you pay our legal fees then.  Big Monday: Big 12 Schedule.  Canadian Elite Hoops: doing great, until this.  Father/Son Recruiting: play for dad or UCLA?  Isiah: checking in on him at FIU.

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. Look for the best pokies online if you want to play exciting games, place your sports bets and win real money.

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. People can bet online with ufabet still. 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.

I’m proud to re-introduce a feature here at Rush the Court – the RTC Blogpoll.

From November through March during the college hoops season, check back here every Monday for the rankings of our four main scribes- myself, rtmsf, nvr1983 and jstevrtc- combined into one, fantastic Top 25 ranking. Take that, AP and coaches!  The aggegrate of our own internal poll will constitute what we submit to the larger national Blogpoll each week. 

To get our loyal readers into hoops mode even for a few minutes during the long offseason, here’s a summer edition of the rankings with commentary provided by yours truly regarding each ranked team. Look for this feature on a weekly basis during the 2009-10 campaign (which, as I concluded while compiling this poll, cannot come soon enough).

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.

Before I get started, I want to reiterate our stance against the scumbags who surreptitiously videotaped Erin Andrews in the clips that apparently came out almost 4 months ago and somehow remained unknown before exploding on the Internet one week ago. . .

As you may know by now the past week has been a particularly trying one for the sports media overlords in Bristol as they have been hit by the aforementioned peephole video scandal, which their own sister network claims might have been an inside job [Ed. Note: Can ESPN sue its parent company?],  and the Ben Roethlisberger fiasco where they waited several days to announce the news that one of the most recognizable athletes in America had a sexual assault charge filed against him. Perhaps the most interesting story out of Bristol this week was that ESPN had decided to blacklist all New York Post staff members from appearing on any ESPN or any of their outlets after the Post ran screencaps of the infamous videos that left little to the imagination. On a basic visceral level, most people would agree to ESPN’s decision as they would  be disgusted by the decision of the Post brain trust to run the screencaps.

The situation becomes a little more dicey when 2 other major media outlets (CBS and FOX News) decided to show the actual clips on their news broadcasts. If the front office people at ESPN actually had a policy or stance regarding the use of these illegally filmed clips, they should have taken a similar stance against CBS and FOX staff members. This raises an interesting question: Why did ESPN single out the New York Post? While some may argue that it was the way the Post utilized the images, we find that rather hard to believe. Although CBS and FOX were not as sensational in their presentation of the clips as the Post was they are in fact doing the same thing–using the illegal footage to try and further their story. For our money, there is a simple answer as to why ESPN singled out the Post staff members for their blacklist–because they can.

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