We really shouldn’t be surprised by this stuff anymore, but we still allow ourselves to be from time to time. 

Rick Pitino said yesterday that two key contributors who were involved in an altercation with police over the weekend will not miss any game time due to their alleged transgressions.  Two expected starters, Terrence Jennings and Jerry Smith, were arrested on Saturday night for mixing it up with police at a homecoming alumni party in Jeffersonville, Indiana (across the Ohio River from Louisville).  In Jennings’ case, he was so resistant to the JPD that he was subjected to a taser – not once, but TWICE – before they finally subdued the 6’10, 230-lb forward.  Smith, a senior guard, allegedly came to his defense, refused to back off, and he too was subdued. 

Both players were arrested and the accompanying police report recommended that each be charged with multiple counts of resisting arrest and battery.   Steven Stewart, the Clark County (IN) prosecuting attorney, had other ideas as last night he stated that they would instead each face a single misdemeanour charge of resisting arrest.  He stated:

People don’t understand that police make a recommendation in the report, but the prosecutor makes the decision what charges will be filed.

This is assuredly true, and something that many people don’t understand.  But it would have been nice if Mr. Stewart had provided a little more by way of explanation as to what mitigating factors he considered in making that decision.  In most cases, police don’t wantonly taser people to the ground (there are exceptions, of course).  And when they do it once, they usually don’t have to do it again.  Yet in the heat of the moment here, the cops felt that Jennings was so completely out of control that he needed to be subjected to extremely strong (sometimes lethal!) jolts of electricity twice.  So why would Stewart reduce the charges against someone whom the police thought was extraordinarily out of line on that night?  What on earth could it be?

We haven’t even gotten into Mr. Best Year of His Life’s sentencing techniques.  It’s understandable to a certain degree that someone in a political position such as Stewart’s must carefully navigate high-profile crimes in full view of his constituents, but what’s Pitino’s deal?  In one statement he says that “anytime you defy a police officer, it’s serious,” and in another he defends Smith’s actions by saying that “he saw a teammate [on the ground] taking some pretty good blows and tried to help.”

Speaking of serious, is Pitino serious with this hedge?  Defying a police officer is failing to move out of the way when he asks you to clear some space.  It is NOT taking haymakers at officers wearing clearly marked “POLICE” jackets, instigating a fight and causing them to use the taser on you twice (in Jennings’ case).  Furthermore, this isn’t a basketball court environment where you’re taught to defend your teammates — this is the real world.  If the cops are busily tasing your friend/teammate, you should be upset (in Smith’s case); but you should also realize that you didn’t see what led to that incident and the cops must believe it’s fairly serious (rightly or wrongly).  The smart move is to keep your head so that you can learn about what is happening and try to negotiate the heated situation – the wrong move is to refuse to back off and make the scene worse for everyone.

Well, at least they’re running lots of sprints (probably as we speak, right?).  That’ll teach ’em, Coach!

The Torrington (CT) Police Department had a busy day impacting the college basketball landscape in the last 24 hours.  The first blurb of news was that Duquesne sophomore guard BJ Monteiro, a backup expected to play a bigger role this season, was charged with larceny of $1400 worth of goods, including an Ipod, a laptop and some cash.  Monteiro is originally from the area, having attended Crosby HS in nearby Waterbury.  Soon after this news hit, the Torrington PD was at it again, this time announcing that it was dropping assault and breach of the peace charges against Maryland freshman forward, Jordan Williams.  This incident stemmed from a fight between Williams’ girlfriend and another girl, but police said nobody was injured and all parties were willing to let things slide.  Torrington is Williams’ hometown.  So does Torrington have a reputation for troublemakers or is this just a really odd coincidence?  We’re going with the latter. 

Well, things continue to improve in Lawrence.

In yet another showing of extremely poor judgment by Kansas players, news just hit the wires that backup guard Brady Morningstar (7/3/3 assts in 30 mpg last year) was arrested for DWI last night, and has been suspended for the first semester as a result.  According to reports, Morningstar was arrested and booked at 3:42 am at the Douglas (KS) County Jail, and released on a $250 bond at 6:01 am the same morning.  Can you imagine Bill Self waking up to that call?  Self, to his credit, immediately suspended Morningstar for the remainder of the semester.  From the Lawrence Journal World & News:

“We are aware of the situation,” Self said. “We are also still fact finding. Regardless of the details that concern the reason for him being stopped, he broke team rules that have been much more stringent since last week. Brady was in serious violation of curfew. Because of that and his extremely poor judgment last night, I have decided to suspend him for the first semester from all competition and travel. Brady will remain a member of our team and will participate in all other team functions. We will support him through this, but needless to say I am very disappointed in the sequence of events that took place last night.”

There’s no word yet whether Morningstar updated his Facebook status page while he was being arrested, but we’re sure those details are coming soon.

Seriously, though, Bill Self must be pulling his hair out right now.  The Lawrence police just announced yesterday that they were looking into filing disorderly conduct charges based on last week’s fights between his team and the football Jayhawks, and now one of his key backups is allegedly driving drunk on the interstate in the middle of the night.  Self says that rules are more stringent in the KU program as a result of those fights, but clearly more needs to be done to sent a message.  Maybe this incident will get the attention of his team?

This Kansas thing just gets uglier.  A report yesterday from the Lawrence Journal World & News associates two other criminal matters with the fights between KU football and basketball players on Sept. 22 and 23.  Officials were quick to say that these crimes do not involve Jayhawk athletes, but from a public relations standpoint, the company you keep can be just as revealing as your own behavior (FB updates for all the world to read).  It’s not fair, but it’s real.  Footage released yesterday showed what appears to be a large crowd of people standing around outside the now-infamous Jayhawker Towers watching something go down (see full video report here), but the angle and quality of the video is not good enough to pick out particular parties who were involved. 

What we do know is that the mother of Mario Chalmers’ child, Andrea Johnson, was cited over the summer for battery in another dispute at the Towers, and she apparently was also somehow mixed up in the mess at KU last week along with another woman who may or may not be the flash point for all of this machismo.  According to court records, Guy Lipscomb, a Lawrence resident who is not a KU student, threatened to shoot Johnson and that woman in the parking lot outside the Towers shortly after the first Sept. 22 melee (pictured above).   

Now, we don’t know about how heated your arguments get with people, but we think it’s safe to say that, as a general rule, if you’re pissing someone off enough for them to seriously threaten to SHOOT you, then there’s probably a decent reason (or two) why that person is angry with you.  Clearly, RTC doesn’t condone assault or battery of any kind, and the police did their sworn and rightful duty to take Lipscomb off the street and away from a potentially deadly situation.  But what’s going on with these two women to make everyone so flippin’ mad? 

We say it again.  Despite what Mark Mangino does, Bill Self has to get in front of this situation.  The more things come out like this, the worse his program and players look in terms of public relations and perception.  And perception impacts recruiting.  He needs to impose sanctions on the involved parties and do so immediately.  And if he cannot figure out exactly who was involved (or the players won’t talk), then he needs to punish the entire team until they do.  This would send a loud and clear directive that he will not tolerate behavior that results in people threatening to shoot each other on his campus.  And remember, despite what anyone else says, KU is Bill Self’s campus.  He’s the national title coach at one of the biggest basketball schools in the country.  His actions and words are the most important on that campus, and his paycheck reflects that reality.