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). 

1. The twitterati was abuzz yesterday with the discovery of UNC forward Ed Davis’ name and photo as a client on a sports agent’s website.  The site is down now, but  Sports Agent Blog captured a screenshot and PTA Sports Management has given a statement to reporters that suggests there may have been some contact with the player at some point in time, but that this whole thing was a “mistake.”   Color us extremely cynical, but we think we all know what happened here.  And when we find out next month that Davis is submitting his name to the NBA Draft, it’ll make sense.  But one quick retort before it even gets started…  if Davis signs with another agent, it doesn’t at all prove that there were no illegal contacts here.  All it proves is that Davis has enough sense to fire an agent who could be so ridiculously stupid as to put his name and face on their website before he’s formally made the decision.
2. UCLA’s James Keefe will have shoulder surgery and will miss the rest of the season, effectively rendering the senior’s career over.  He only averaged 2/2 throughout the course of his career, but Howland was enamored with his defense and toughness, so he played in 111 games in his Bruin tenure.
3. Seth Davis gives us his weekly mailbag, and he devotes more than a third of it to questions about the ACC.  We have to agree that one thing that really ticks us off about modern-day conferences is the loss of round-robin schedules, but that’s unfortunately true for every major conference except the Pac-10 (oops, we said major conferences, didn’t we) these days.
4. Answer: USC’s hearing in front of the NCAA Infractions Committee that took place yesterday.  Question: things that are more pleasant than what Tiger Woods will do in front of the world later this morning.
5. Gregg Marshall of Wichita State can get a little testy at times, and this video where he attacks local reporter Bob Lutz for putting “negativity” in the minds of some Shocker fans is a joy to watch.  The video is below, and you can read Lutz’s original article here and his retort here.  Justified?

1. Bowling I and Theory of Softball??  Pete Thamel of the NYT as usual is all over the Binghamton report that came out yesterday exposing the unsavory lengths that their athletic department was willing to go in order to have an NCAA Tournament-caliber basketball program.  Meanwhile former head coach Kevin Broadus remains on PAID administrative leave at the university awaiting a decision on his future there.  How can he have any future whatsoever given these findings?
2. Quick, do you know how many teams currently have undefeated conference records?  If you said nine, then you either came here yesterday or you’re fibbing.  John Stevens wrote an article discussing each of those nine teams and the likelihood that they’ll get through conference play without a blemish.  Hint: the Princeton Tigers (4-0 in the Ivy League) will not.
3. The New York Daily News reported yesterday that Rick Pitino was interested in the Nets head coaching job, which would make sense considering that they’re likely to have John Wall (and possibly Lebron James?) coming to the tri-state area in the near future.  Pitino responded with a great quote — “there’s not an ounce of truth to [the report],” which, knowing Pitino, means that he was clawing at the possibility of leaving Louisville as soon as possible.  We’ve all been to this dance with Pitino before, but Gary Parrish put it in the starkest terms when he compared it to asking the pretty gal to a middle school dance.
4. UConn’s Jim Calhoun will be back on the bench Saturday when his Huskies play Cincinnati.  His team went 3-4 in his absence, with wins over St. John’s, DePaul, and somehow, Texas.  What shouldn’t be forgotten, though, is that his team was already 2-3 in the Big East prior to his departure, and in the last six games he coached (including a loss to Michigan), the Huskies’ efficiency margin was -3.3 points per 100 possessions.  How did replacement coach George Blaney do in his seven-game tenure?  The Huskies’ efficiency margin on his watch was -2.1 points per 100 possessions.  So before UConn fans start blaming Blaney for any of the team’s inadequacies this season (a la Pete Gaudet at Duke in 1994-95), they should be careful to examine the entire picture first.
5. We were anxiously awaiting someone to take up the mantle of supporting the idea of NCAA96, and leave it to Gregg Doyel to be the advocate.  Some of his points are solid — in particular, the nearsighted “tradition” argument.  But the one that really doesn’t make sense to us is the explanation he gives for keeping the “crappy teams” in.  He must not have read our seminal work on the matter, published last week.  See, the problem isn’t that “crappy teams” like Vermont, Bucknell and Davidson would get into the Big Dance; it’s that sub-.500 BCS conference teams like Miami (FL), Alabama, Oklahoma and Washington would get in.  And we don’t want them in — those teams are not good enough, no matter how you evaluate them.  If the NCAA96 implementation would reward strong regular season play for mid-majors whom would otherwise be shut out, we could get on board with it.  But you, us, Gregg and the dog all know that’s not why this will be happening — the majority of the additional 31 spots will go to BCS teams.  And that’s truly crap.

1. From the we’re completely shocked department, Oklahoma players Steven Pledger and Andrew Fitzgerald were suspended from the team prior to the Sooners’ game with Texas Tech last night.  Was there poetic justice?  Absolutely, as Oklahoma lost by a single point.  Do you think that just maybe those two players could have been worth a single bucket in tonight’s game?  Great decision, fellas.
2. If you guys haven’t been there already, you should try out a site called Lost Lettermen, which tracks old players of all sorts from over the years.  In recent weeks, they’ve tracked down former college stars John Gilchrist, Michael Doleac, Drew Neitzel, even Harold Freakin’ Miner.  Our favorite, though?  The whereabouts of the members of the 1985 national champion Villanova Wildcats.
3. With news today that he had secretly videotaped sixteen tv personalities and celebrities, the Erin Andrews stalker has now officially moved from a misguided idiot to a total creepster.  Twenty-seven months in prison seems like a gift.
4. Three words:  Felony.  Snowball.  Throwing.  JMU guard Ryan Knight (and accomplice Charles Gill) made Pledger and Fitzgerald (ab0ve) look like brainiacs with their decision to throw snowballs at a plow and inside an unmarked police vehicle last weekend.   The last part of that statement is what really interests us.  Who hasn’t thrown a wayward bomb or two at a passing car or plow in their lives?   But to start unloading on people getting out of the car that comes to aid the plow?  You gotta have a better escape plan, fellas!
5. Your must-read of the day is George Dorhmann’s piece on CNNSI that meticulously gets to the bottom of the self-imposed sanctions that Arizona put itself on late last week as a result of Lute Olson’s illegal letter to boosters in 2008.  The fact that there was so much gray-area rule-skirting going on at the Cactus Classic involving such prominent names as Josh Pastner, Mike Dunlap and Miles Simon (all tangentially related to this) suggests considerably more culpability than Arizona brass suggests with their ‘crazy old man’ theory.

1. Want to know what’s wrong with UNC this year?  One ACC coach laid out all of the dirty laundry about Roy Williams’ team in an interview with the Washington Post.  Since the coach was speaking as someone who had faced Carolina once already this season, and the article came out Saturday morning, this means that it was one of the following four: Seth Greenberg (Virginia Tech), Paul Hewitt (Georgia Tech), Oliver Purnell (Clemson), Sidney Lowe (NC State) or Dino Gaudio (Wake Forest).  Lowe lost to the Heels in their only game and Gaudio still seems too new to make those kinds of statements about that program, even anonymously.  That leaves Greenberg, Hewitt and Purnell, and our money is on Greenberg.  For some reason it just sounds like him (and the WaPo probably has a closer relationship with him than the others).
2. Florida State announced on Sunday that they will be vacating wins from ten sports that involved 61 athletes accused of academic misconduct during the 2006-07 academic year.  Most of the news will focus on football coach Bobby Bowden losing 12 wins from his career total, but of interest to us is that the basketball program will lose all 22 of its wins from that year as well — one from the ACC Tourney, and two from the NIT.
3. Based on everything that Isiah Thomas says here about his lack of interest in the LA Clippers job, we fully expect him to see him stalking the sidelines (and the interns!) at the Staples Center next season.
4. NCAA 96: a voice of reason on expansion of the NCAA Tournament from an unlikely source, the Commissioner of the Big Ten, Jim Delaney.  The key takeaway from his discussion with TSN is ‘let’s learn more about this.’  Exactly.  The more time spent talking to stakeholders as well as THE FANS is simple but seemingly missing from this idea — it helps to remove avarice from the equation and gives reasoned consideration to the premise that just because an idea will be profitable makes it a good thing.
5. Pat Forde writes that if the COY award were handed out today, there would be no doubt who should win it – Jim Boeheim.  He won’t get any argument from us.  Syracuse received 83 votes in the preseason AP Poll (good for 31st) and 111 votes in the ESPN/Coaches Poll (25th).  The Orange are now 23-1, leading the Big East Conference, and could potentially be Boeheim’s best team ever.  That’s right.  Look through this list and find a better team.  It’s hard to do.

1. The Michigan State blog that’s not a Michigan State blog, Sparty & Friends, reminds us that a mere ten years ago, a certain talented MSU point guard also went down with an ankle injury that forced his team to grow up without him.  Mateen Cleaves missed twelve games for the 1999-2000 Spartans, and when he came back, MSU won its second national title.  Kalin Lucas is more of a scorer while Cleaves was more of a distributor, but the comparison is interesting.  One necessary distinction, though, is that Lucas likely will not be out very long (1-3 games).
2. WVU’s president Jim Clements said that he was “appalled and embarrassed” by the fans’ behavior in their game against Pitt on Wednesday night, which included someone throwing a coin that hit a Pitt assistant coach just under his eye.  He promised better security, but there are limits to what can be policed in these situations.  Honestly, despite what Gary Parrish wrote yesterday, we’re not convinced that college basketball is on the brink of a major incident  between athletes and fans any more than we were ten or twenty years ago.  We have trouble believing that the student section fervor is any worse, and it may actually be better.  People have always thrown things, and fans have always been obnoxious.
3. Arizona reportedly will self-impose sanctions as a result of a violation during Lute Olson’s tenure in the summer of 2008.  The violation involved a letter on Olson’s letterhead sent to boosters asking for donations for an AAU basketball tournament called the Arizona Cactus Classic.  The proposed sanctions will not include a postseason ban, but it will include the loss of a scholarship and less recruiting trips.
4. Luke Winn’s Power Rankings this week find K-State moving into the top five despite the loss at home to Kansas last weekend, but he missed one thing in his lead about the horrific still photos.  While the two he chose were obviously very scary, they weren’t nearly as horrific as this one.  And we say that completely wishing it weren’t true.
5. Dan Levy at The Sporting Blog lays out his guidelines for when it is appropriate for fans to taunt their opponent in light of the unconscionable decision by the Colorado student body to use the “overrated” chant in a game they were clearly going to lose (see below).   Come to think of it, can we just retire the “overrated” chant altogether?  When you’re winning the game, you’re marginalizing your team’s big win by using that chant; and when you’re losing, well, you shouldn’t be chanting anything at all when you’re losing.

1. Some day-after analysis of South Carolina’s big upset over #1 Kentucky on Tuesday night…  a night that cost the Gamecocks $25k for the RTC (well worth it, if you ask us).  Jeff Goodman thinks the loss shows that the field is wide open this year, Pat Forde was really impressed by Devan Downey (like Calvin Murphy-impressed), and Gregg Doyel can’t get over the fact that Kentucky raised over a million bucks for Haiti.
2. Memphis will plead for leniency before the NCAA Infractions Appeal Committee in Indianapolis on Friday regarding the Derrick Rose scandal and those 38 vacated wins.  We’re not likely to know anything until four to six weeks after the hearing, however.
3. What was going on up in Seattle on Tuesday night with the ridiculous number of fouls in the Washington vs. Seattle game, which UW won 123-76?  Cameron Dollar’s Seattle Redhawks were hit with FORTY-FIVE personal fouls, and actually had to play the last 1:32 of the game with only four players on the floor.  Folks, they had more fouls than rebounds.  Soooo, let’s put this in perspective… the same team that defeated Oregon State by 51 just lost by 47 to Washington, and both Pac-10 teams are basically sharing space at the bottom of the conference standings.
4. Jim Boeheim: stand-up comedian.  Yeah, everything is funny when you’re 20-1 and ranked in the top five. 
   
5. As if there was ever any question about this, we noted something a little odd about a television glimpse of Dookie V’s grandson who was attending the  Duke-Florida State game at Cameron Indoor Stadium last night.  We’ve obscured the little guy’s face to protect the young/innocent, but given this outward display of partisanship by his family, how can Dick Vitale ever again say with a straight face that he’s capable of calling a Blue Devils game fairly?

Little Dookie V.

1. Knowing what we know about NC State, this idea to use a real wolf as the team mascot will not end well.  Then again, maybe the wolf can “escape” and devour Sidney Lowe during a rampage — that might make some of their fans happy.
2. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan pulled no punches in his address to the NCAA yesterday, stating that college basketball is tainted by ‘renegade’ coaches and that the one-and-done rule is essentially an academic sham.
3. The hits keep coming for DePaul.  Just days after firing their coach Jerry Wainwright, the Blue Demons lost their best player Mac Koshwal 2-4 weeks with a foot injury.
4. Luke Winn is back with his power rankings in the best read of the week, as usual.  It’s a little scary that we remember those LJ/Augmon t-shirts from the days when the high fade was still rockin like Marley Marl and De La Soul.
5. OJ Mayo continues to hide behind his agent when it comes to substantive answers while maintaining that he loves USC and would have never done anything inappropriate like, oh, maybe take money to attend the school.  Look, we know he’s not legally obligated to say a word, but just once we’d like to see an athlete come out in his prime and say, “yeah, I did all that stuff and more.  So what?”  Maybe by thumbing his nose at the NCAA, it’ll help embarrass the organization into re-assessing how they do business.

1. Fordham transfer player Jio Fontan has resurfaced all the way across the country at USC, and he will be eligible to play next season at the semester break.  This is a good pickup for Kevin O’Neill, as Fontan averaged 15/5 assts in a season-plus at Fordham and will be able to move into the PG slot vacated by Mike Gerrity.  Speaking of USC, the self-imposed sanctions on the basketball program may not become official until February, when the school will appear in front of the NCAA Infractions Committee.  Does this mean that, if the Committee imposes much harsher penalties than proposed that this year’s Trojans could actually still play in the postseason?
2. Jerry Tarkanian never wasted an opportunity to take a shot at the NCAA, and his guns were blazing at a speech he gave in Arkansas Monday where he called the NCAA the “crookedest organization in this country.”
3. Charlotte’s Shamarr Bowden, a freshman shooting guard averaging 5.7 PPG in ten minutes per game, will transfer from the school to a destination unknown.  Former Ohio State guard Walter Offutt has transferred to Wright State, and Georgetown forward Nikita Mescheriakov is enrolled at Wake Forest.
4. Mike DeCourcy suggests that the problems at DePaul go well beyond Jerry Wainwright and indicts the administration itself.  His point about firing Wainwright in the middle of the season after an 0-18 Big East slate is a great insight.
5. More aftermath from the Tennessee upset over #1 Kansas on Sunday, including Parrish’s take on Skylar McBee and how he’s living his dream at Tennessee.   As for Kansas, maybe they should have taken more half-court shots during the game.  They seem to be pretty good at making them.

1. Chairgate 2010.  Did Karl Malone or did he not throw Nevada’s folding chairs into the dumpster after a recent game between Louisiana Tech and the Wolfpack (on ‘his’ court)?  We have no idea but the mere thought of it is awesome on about twenty-four different levels.  Please, please let The Mailman do an interview with someone over this soon.
2. Jim Calhoun is becoming a specific target after last year’s presser incident about his salary, as this exchange with a crank caller documented by Adam Zagoria on today’s Big East coaches conference call attests.
3. OJ Mayo’s agent wants everyone to know that he took no inducements to come to USC nor during his one year in Los Angeles and, um, it was all Rodney Guillory’s fault and it was OJ’s love of California that drew him to a football school with virtually no basketball history.  And please, no more questions.
4. One of our favorite ACC bloggers broke down the twelve teams of the ACC using “NBA Jam” and concluded that Georgia Tech’s trio of Gani Lawal, Derrick Favors and Mfon Udofia would be sicknasty.  He’s probably right because Paul Hewitt wouldn’t be around to coach them.
5. Luke Winn’s Power Rankings don’t see much movement, but is there a more interesting read on in the entire canon of college basketball coverage on a weekly basis than this feature?  Not for our money.

1. Cal’s hustle and glue guy Jorge Gutierrez will be out of both Bear games this week (vs. UCLA and USC) with a sprained right knee that he suffered in a game against Stanford over the weekend.  Along the same lines, UCLA’s Jerime Anderson will be benched in the Cal game for missing a rehab session, meaning that Tyler Honeycutt will get the first start of his career.
2. Former Wolverine and current Domino’s Pizza CEO David Brandon will take over as the new Michigan AD.  We know there’s a joke here somewhere.
3. The first Korean to ever earn a D1 basketball scholarship, Maryland’s Jin Soo Choi, is returning to his home country to pursue basketball opportunities there.
4. Kalin Lucas is prepping for MSU’s game with Wisconsin by calling the Badgers a “dirty” team.  Should be fun tonight in East Lansing.
5. Were the self-imposed penalties that USC placed on its basketball program too light?  CNNSI’s George Dohrmann thinks so.

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).

1. Joe Dumars’ son, 6′5 freshman forward Jordan (is that a joke?), has already left the South Florida program and enrolled at Michigan for the remainder of his career.  He’s only played 27 minutes so far this season, scoring all six of his points in a single game against Kent State.
2. Oklahoma State’s Marshall Moses was suspended for one game almost immediately after his arrest for possession of marijuana and driving on a suspended license.  Averaging 11/10 on the season, he will miss tonight’s game against Coppin State.
3. Tennessee update from the AD himself:  “we start at dismissal and work our way backwards.”  Sounds about right.  Let’s hope he means it.
4. USC’s Kevin O’Neill said that delivering the news to his seniors that they would not have a chance to play in the postseason was much harder than ever getting fired (and he would know!).
5. Here’s Seth Davis‘ annual Stock Report.  This is always a fun read, and his UNC “sell” looks particularly prescient after last night’s loss to Charleston, but there will always be a few quibbles on something like this.  We will not, for example, be buying anything Florida is selling, and we are definitely unloading what little Louisville stock we still have lying around, but overall, pretty good assessment.

1. Mike DeCourcy correctly skewers USC officials for throwing its basketball program under the bus to save the cash-cow football program.  It’s a classic negotiation technique that nobody will ever admit on the record to doing — give up something you don’t really care about to protect the thing that you do (apparently others have seen through this mirage as well).  Sad for Mike Gerrity and company.  The hope here is that these players win the Pac-10 regular season and celebrate in style (see: Kentucky 1991). 
2. Bill & Mary: the plucky little Tribe that could. 
3. Bruce Pearl apologized to anyone who would listen — including Tennessee women’s coach Pat Summit — for his four players’ arrests last week where they were found with drugs and guns in a rental car.  That’s all fine and well, but what’s going to be the verdict on these guys, Coach? 
4. Jeff Goodman analyzes what people are calling Kentucky’s x-factor this year: the head of talented center DeMarcus Cousins.  If he keeps it, the Cats could go all the way; if he doesnt’…
5. Step right up!  Get your official signed logo UConn basketball from “HOF Legend” Alex Oriakhi.  Yes, for $99.99 you can be the proud owner of this certain treasure as you watch its value exponentially grow on your mantle!  (for those of you wondering, Oriakhi is a nice player… he averaged 5/9/2 blks in 29 MPG… he has a long way to go to be worth paying $100 for a signed ball, though)

1. Matt Doherty appears ready to forgive and forget (mostly) his exit from North Carolina five years ago, but one quote in this probing article is revealing.  Speaking as to whether he was forced out because Roy Williams was ready to return to Chapel Hill, he said, “I don’t think that was the case.  But I also do know – I don’t think schools make changes like that without having feelers out there.”  Sounds like Doherty doesn’t believe himself.
2. Doctors are shutting it down for South Carolina forward Dominique Archie yesterday, after realizing that his rehab would not allow him to return to full strength this season.  He injured the knee in a game against Miami (FL) four weeks ago and had not played since.  This will quite obviously hurt SC’s chances of getting through the rugged SEC East, especially considering the Gamecocks’ troubles on the glass (Archie was leading the team with 6.0 RPG).
3. UCLA’s Nikola Dragovic pleaded not guilty yesterday to a charge of felony assault deriving from an incident outside a Hollywood (always up to no good) concert on October 28.  He is alleging self-defense for tackling a guy into a plate glass window which severed the man’s Achilles tendon.  Dragovic is averaging 8/6 for the struggling Bruins, but he has already served a two-game suspension as a result of this ongoing distraction.
4. Remember this anecdote about Rob Senderoff, the assistant coach caught up in the Kelvin Sampson phone-call fiasco at Indiana, when Memphis gets its final ruling from the NCAA in a few weeks, or whenever.   Does anyone else feel that with Myles Brand not steering the ship that the NCAA is listing frightfully to starboard?
5. First Laettner, now Bobby Hurley.  If we were Coach K or Grant Hill’s investment manager, we’d probably make sure that their financial tentacles never touch the Bluegrass State.  Those Kentucky people will get it back someway, somehow.  It, of course, meaning $946,961.58.

1. Will Brandon Knight become the next Derrick Rose Tyreke Evans John Wall for John Calipari at Memphis Kentucky?  One of the top players in the Class of 2010 has, according to Zagsblog, listed his final four schools:  Kansas, Kentucky, UConn and Florida.  He’ll sign in the spring, but you have to believe that with Wall leaving Lexington in April, the Wildcats would be very well situated for another one-and-done point guard prospect to enter the school.
2. Arkansas can’t seem to get anything right lately.  It’s a small violation, but the Hawgs self-reported a violation involving photo images of players in a magazine.
3. This was rumored last week, but it became official yesterday.  The Big Ten will formally explore the option of adding a twelfth team to its mix, ostensibly to have a football championship game.  We hope to have an analysis up later on this, but how will it affect basketball?  John Gasaway thinks it will come down to Pittsburgh or Missouri.
4. Do you know anything — anything at all — about the Western Carolina Catamounts and their star player Jake Robinson?  Educate yourself.
5. Roy Williams explained himself further on his radio show Monday night.  Let’s just say that he didn’t apologize for overreacting, instead choosing to contextualize his thinking of the incident to excuse his behavior.   Here’s the relevant excerpt, but we suggest you read the entire thing here.

Saturday night, all of a sudden, some guy stands up and starts yelling at Deon and it came from behind our bench. And you know how when some things happen, you instantly think of something? My first thought was, ‘Now our parents are having to listen to somebody else, and it’s in our own building.’ And so I turned around and I said, ‘Who said that?’ And about 40-50-60-70-80 people started pointing up at this guy. The guy gets up and starts gyrating with his arms and everything like, ‘Yeah, it was me,’ and that kind of thing. And it really did tick me off. I turned and said something to the ushers behind the bench and they started up through there, and I turned around and coached the game. I have no idea what happened. I never turned around to the guy again. But my feeling was immediately that our parents who sit right behind our bench have to put up with that stuff again in our own building. So that was it. And after the game, they told me that they had escorted the young man out. Supposedly what had happened was they had asked him for his ticket and he didn’t have a ticket or wasn’t supposed to be sitting in that seat. Supposedly, and I want to emphasis the word supposedly, he didn’t cooperate as much as they wanted, and they chose to take him out.

1. Rutgers inside force Gregory Echinique will miss approximately a month due to eye surgery to correct a pre-existing condition recently.  Which begs the question – if it was pre-existing, why not have the surgery during the offseason?  Did it become aggravated?  The 6′9 forward is averaging 13/8/2 blks on the season, and the Scarlet Knights will undoubtedly miss his presence in upcoming games against beefy frontlines at North Carolina, Cincinnati and West Virginia.
2. This is rich.  Binghamton continues to pay coaching disaster Kevin Broadus his full $230k yearly salary while interim coach Mark Macon draws one-quarter as much money for, you know, actually coaching the remaining players on the team.  At least Macon is getting a raise, although the amount of the increase was not disclosed by the university.  As for Broadus, the “job” he’s earning six-figures for right now is to assist SUNY with their investigation into the Binghamton athletic department.  What does that mean exactly?  Get coffee?  Make copies?  Do both at the same time?
3. Luke Winn probably knocked this article about the first Irianian player in D1 basketball out in fifteen minutes while surfing his blackberry iPhone and eating a bran muffin, which should probably tell you something about the talent he has for research and writing.  It would take us three straight weeks just to pen the first paragraph.
4. Memphis filed an appeal against the NCAA’s decision to vacate its 2008 season based on the Derrick Rose SAT scandal, even with the distinct possibility that the school could face a harsher punishment than currently imposed if they did so.  We’re not really keen on the NCAA Committee on Infractions using this heavyhanded method of leverage to try to force schools to swallow their initial decision just because they said so.  Memphis correctly argued that this creates a “chilling effect” for schools that wish to use their legal right to appeal, and even cited language from a 2001 case against UNLV to that effect.  We’re starting to wonder if someone at the NCAA lost a lot of money on Memphis that season, because this is taking the appearance of vindictiveness.
5. Jumping back to Tuesday’s discussion on Expansion 96, Andy Katz weighed in yesterday on his blog.  He noted that recently deceased NCAA President Myles Brand was steadfastly opposed to expansion along with several of the other traditionalists, and we’re wondering if the power vacuum in Brand’s absence hasn’t created a bit of a money grab among some of the dissenters within the NCAA heirarchy.  Let’s hope tradition wins out, or at worst, the option that Katz describes (four play-in games, pushing the Tourney up to 68 teams) is the preferred result if things must change.

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. 

1. AOL Fanhouse reported yesterday that there is an ongoing pattern of NCAA rules violations at South Florida, according to various former assistant coaches and players of the program under Stan Heath.  Many of the alleged violations involve strength and conditioning assistant Terrelle Woody, who was hired in part to ensure the recruitment of Gus Gilchrist to the program in 2008.  The allegations include unauthorized “open gyms” during dead periods, a cover-up of a burglary involving current players, and the providing of excessive free transportation for Gus Gilchrist by Woody.  The details are very specific, and we’d bet that there’s something behind all of this.
2. Of all the things to lose your job over…  San Diego State athletic director Jeff Schemmel resigned his position yesterday in light of allegations that he used the school credit card to rent a car and pay for gas to meet his mistress in Alabama.  Schemmel made over $250k per year, but we guess having a mistress 2500 miles away taxes your financial picture more than we think.
3. Villanova big man Mouphtaou Yarou had to fly home from the Puerto Rico Tipoff yesterday prior to his team’s game against George Mason due to a viral infection.  Without Yarou or Reggie Redding (suspension) in the lineup for the Wildcats, Villanova came from behind in gritty fashion to win the game on a late three by Isaiah Armwood.
4. Yesterday the SI guys gave us their NPOY candidates, etc.; today they draft their collegiate dream teams and banter back and forth about it.  Armstrong’s team has the most NBA level talent, so we’re going with that one as the top choice.
5. The NCAA defended Memphis’ decision to not release the content of its response to the Memphis rebuttal in the Derrick Rose SAT scandal that we wrote about yesterday.  “In order to… maintain the integrity of the enforcement process, there is no ability for a member school to print, save or download the information contained on the secure web site,” said an NCAA spokesperson yesterday.  Which doesn’t really answer the question in our view.  This NCAA response speaks to the physical limitations of the information, but it doesn’t speak to the paraphrasing and re-telling of it in any way, which Memphis could easily do if they merely said “the NCAA agreed/disagreed with our assessment on strict liability.”  Again, we think that Memphis is handling this the right way, though, because it makes the NCAA look bad, and when Memphis if ultimately punished for this, the Tigers will have won the PR battle over this charade already.

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.