With all the college basketball news floating around the Internet right now I also missed an interesting piece of news about the Robert Morris basketball team and I’m sure the administration at wishes I had. According to police reports, Mezie Nwigwe, the Colonials’ leading scorer (6.5 PPG) off the bench, was involved in an altercation that left 2 men with minor injuries. Apparently Nwigwe was with 3 of his teammates (Jeremy Chappell, Rob Robinson and Velton Jones) when the fight allegedly happened at 2:20 AM on Saturday. Although Nwigwe was not arrested he was issued a court summons on an assault charge.

Nwigwe is a Valuable Asset (photo credit: syracuse.com)

Normally this wouldn’t make headlines on a national blog like Rush the Court, but the Colonials will be playing for the Northeast Conference championship game against Mount St. Mary’s tomorrow night with a trip to the NCAA tournament on the line. Of course, this leaves the Robert Morris athletic department and administration with a dilemma. What did they do? Initially Robert Morris was uncertain about what they should do with Nwigwe. However, after a few hours of deliberation they reached a surpisingly firm decision that Nwigwe would play. Maybe I have become a little jaded with the way schools handle athletics today, but I’m pretty sure Robert Morris wouldn’t be as firmly behind Nwigwe if this had happened to him prior to a game against Mount St. Mary’s in the middle of January. I think this one falls under Bobby Bowden’s Variable Laws where punishments depend on the importance of next weekend’s game. And I am sure the $125k that the NCAA gives each tournament team per game didn’t have any influence on their decision. . .