Sunday, March 21 (all CBS)
12:10pm - Syracuse vs. Gonzaga
2:20pm - Ohio State vs Georgia Tech
2:30pm - Maryland vs Michigan State
2:40pm - West Virginia vs Missouri
2:50pm - Wisconsin vs Cornell
4:50pm - Pittsburgh vs Xavier
5:00pm - Purdue vs Texas A&M
5:15pm - Duke vs California
In Duncanville, Texas, earlier today, the winningest coach in men’s college hoops made an appearance at a facility to which he’s lending his name and quite likely his time — specifically, a space in the southern Dallas-Fort Worth area to be used for youth basketball and volleyball leagues and other programs meant to foster academic skills, life skills for both kids and adults, etc. It’ll be called Bob Knight’s Fieldhouse and is slated for a February opening. Hey, sounds good, right? Like him or not, the guy’s a legendary coach, to say the least, and of course he’s known for graduating almost 100% of his players. Knight also has a small financial consideration in this undertaking and he’s not exactly known for getting into that many business ventures, so no doubt he’s serious about this and perhaps he’s the right man to get something like this going. So, while we still think that shot back in 2000 on Jeremy Schaap was pretty cheap, we’re impressed with his involvement in this project. And we’re sure Coach Knight is glad that we’re impressed.
But the other reason we’re mentioning this is the dig that Knight got in on the NCAA during his appearance at the facility. In the AP report (via ESPN.com) it isn’t mentioned who asked the question, but whoever it was set him up beautifully. Knight was asked whether the NCAA was going to have any involvement in this project. His response:
“If the NCAA had anything to do with this, the roof would leak, there would be no locks on the doors, and the court would only have one basket.”
The guy never misses a chance, does he? And in the very same appearance, he notes that he hasn’t ruled out a return to the college coaching ranks and therefore the chance to once again be ruled (so to speak) by the organization he hates and at which he is still tossing verbal grenades.
A series of unfortunate events came down the pike to ruin what had previously been an exciting day when ESPN released it’s 24 Hours of Hoops schedule for November 17. Let’s briefly cover each so that we can move on to more pleasant things (hopefully tomorrow).
We woke up to the news that Pitt’s best returning player, Jermaine Dixon, broke his right foot for the second time this summer while playing in a pickup game. Given that it’s already mid-September and the doctors are telling him that it’ll take at least eight weeks to heal, this news clearly puts Jamie Dixon’s squad behind the 8-ball going into October practice and the first few games of the season. We would be completely shocked if Pitt fell off the map this year because Dixon is such an excellent coach, but on paper the 09-10 team already appears to be the weakest of his seven-year tenure. Losing their only returning starter for a while near the start of the season cannot help. And what’s up with that right foot – is this mere coincidence or does he have a problem there?
From the crime blotter, Wisconsin freshman guards Jeremy Glover and Diamond Taylor are now off the team (Glover was dismissed; Taylor withdrew) after their arrest for allegedly stealing ipods, a cell phone and $400 in cash last week from a UW dorm. The two players were expected to provide backcourt depth this season for Bo Ryan’s team, but he’ll need to lean more heavily on returnees Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon than anticipated.
Finally, as you’ve probably heard by now, NCAA President-cum-Reformer Myles Branddied today from pancreatic cancer. As the head honcho of the NCAA over the last six years, we’ve certainly had our fair share of criticism directed at his leadership, mostly with respect to investigations of alleged violations and selective enforcement of the rules. But there can be no question that we completely respect and admire the work that Brand did in terms tying academic performance of athletes at the sport-level (and soon, coach-level) to key athletic assets such as scholarships and postseason appearances. The Academic Progress Report (APR) that Brand initiated to achieve this end definitely contains some loopholes, but at the very least, he has schools, ADs and coaches thinking about performance of their players in the classroom, which is a far, far cry from where it was ten years ago. RTC lauds Myles Brand for this impressive and hopefully lasting achievement, and we hope that to honor his legacy, his replacement will continue to tweak the APR, giving it teeth, so that schools will take it seriously. RIP, Mr. Brand.
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.
Ed. Note: check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.
We already know that this selection is going to cause some consternation among teams that weren’t selected as high. It’s ok. We get it. The selection process ultimately comes down to a matter of taste, and Memphis blended with our palates a little better than the others. If you disagree, let us know…
#8 – Memphis
Overview. In the period from 2000-2009, few college basketball programs “felt” bigger than Memphis. John Calipari showed up to run the show in 2000 and everyone knew what was to come — big-time recruits, lots of one-and-done types, scads more wins, deeper advancement in the NCAA. Also on the way, whether justified or not, was that dirty feeling that comes with knowing that your program is being led by a fellow on whom you always feel you — or maybe a private detective you’ve hired — need to keep a close eye. In terms of the on-the-floor expectations, Calipari delivered exactly what was expected of him; after a couple of warm-up years things improved and then really took off in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons when Memphis and their collection of ridiculous interchangable-part type athletes rode Calipari’s Dribble-Drive Offense to consecutive regular-season 30-3 records and Elite Eight apperances. As a basketball power, Memphis was taken more seriously than it ever had been and it looked like Calipari was building a Leviathan. The 2007-08 squad validated this by putting up such impressive numbers as achieving the school’s second-ever #1 ranking, a 38-win season (jeez), and its first Final Four since the days of Keith Lee and Dana Kirk back in 1985. Then, in the championship game…well, in case you didn’t see it….about two minutes to go, up by nine, they….um….well, just check this out. Even with this, even if you didn’t agree with all of their methods, the Memphis program had still reached elite status in the college hoops world.
Pinnacle. No question, things were sweetest in Tigerland when they posted that 37th win and made it to that 2008 Final Four. That particular Memphis team, with Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose and a litany of other high-flying gazelles — you remember the likes of Joey Dorsey, Antonio Anderson, Robert Dozier, I’m sure — was so athletic that you forgot about any possibility of, er, shadiness. For the most part, you just enjoyed the show. A case could definitely be made for a co-pinnacle for this program mere days later when they were, as noted above, up by nine in the final with only a couple minutes left between them and the true goal inherent in any lofty expectations — a title.
Tailspin. The 63-63 tie that resulted from Mario’s Miracle. When Mario Chalmers hit that jumper, things were never the same therafter. You could feel it coming. Kansas was on fire in that stretch and Memphis couldn’t hit a free throw, but it was that shot, that boot to the forehead, that has started the Tiger program on its tailspin. The next season (2008-09) was a disappointment by comparison, ending with an upset loss to Missouri in the Sweet 16 even though Memphis was again a popular and sexy pick for the Final Four. Then came the departure of John Calipari to Kentucky and the NCAA allegations of Derrick Rose’s test-taking naughtiness.
Outlook for 2010s: Grade: C. While Calipari seems to be pretty much off the hook in this Rose business — and Derrick Rose as well, just because he moved on — in the near future the Memphis program could still possibly feel the NCAA’s bitch-slapping pimp hand, and that Pinnacle as described above could be erased from the history books altogether, meaning Memphis might have to pack up the Aerostar and vacate their ‘08 Final Four and all 38 of those victories like they never happened. Enter former Arizona (and single-season at Memphis) assistant Josh Pastner. Already known among coaching insiders as a hell of a recruiter, he knows what it takes to win; he was a walk-on on Arizona’s 1997 championship team. It’s not like he’s going to let the post-Calipari roster totally collapse, and he’ll most certainly bring in his own high-level studs. The question is, given the recent achievements of this program, how much time will he be allowed? It’s difficult to speculate as far as an outlook for this program until the NCAA decides what they’re going to do to them, if anything. The buzz around the program is more positive than you might expect, and that’s because of Pastner. If he’s allowed the time to get over any penalties the NCAA might unload on the program, it will still be quite a while before they return to the level they achieved in the late 2000s. But, in the end, I’ll bet that this program will do a little better than, say, to go the way of their former home – the now-empty Memphis Pyramid, previously the residence of the NCAA’s Tigers, NBA’s Grizzlies, numerous concerts and conference tournaments, and more recently (but no longer) the home of the biggest and most oddly-shaped Bass Pro Shops you’ve ever seen.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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:
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. . .
John Stevens is a featured writer for RTC. His column appears on Tuesdays throughout the season.
So of course now there’s speculation that Bob Knight is headed to yet another school where all he’ll have to do is change the logo on his red sweaters and he’s good to go. I obviously don’t know if he’ll end up taking the position, but despite Knight’s feeble attempt to downplay the issue, I think we can say for sure that he’s considering it.
Questions, Indeed… (photo credit: daylife.com)
Note how the initial reports stated that “a friend” of Knight’s stated that he was interested in the job. Ok, fine. But the General’s response to this? He didn’t say anything about whether or not he’s talked to friends about the job, he never said anything about how his friends would NEVER talk to local media about Knight’s speculation over a job, he never said anything about how he flatly didn’t want that job. In fact, he’s made it a point to reiterate his previous statement of “I never said I wouldn’t coach again, I’d be interested if the right situation came along,” though he adds that he hasn’t had any contact with anyone “at Georgia” about that particular vacancy. “I haven’t talked to anyone from Georgia about it” is not an answer to the question. “Are you thinking about taking a job that an alleged friend of yours said you were interested in?” Woodward and Bernstein would call that a non-denying denial. Seems like Knight’s had contact with SOMEONE or else he’d be angrier and more direct in his lack of interest. And he’d most certainly have this “friend” publicly flogged.
Another interesting wrinkle is the timing of this Pat Summitt situation, with her 1000th win coming up sometime soon. Summitt didn’t get it on Monday, but as you likely know, they had Knight, as the all-time-winningest NCAA men’s coach, calling that game with Brent Musberger for ESPN. I wonder how easy that is for Knight to be around. I’m not saying he begrudges Coach Summitt anything, but the worship for the Tennessee coach has increased so much lately ahead of that pending 1000th win. You don’t think a competitive guy like Knight wouldn’t mind a little of that reverence and adoration, himself? To go down as the ONLY NCAA men’s coach to get into the quadruple-figures, and therefore don the implied “best-coach-ever” mantle that comes with a number like that? I think Knight would consider that to be an absolute acquittal and justification for everything he’s ever done, and that might be to tasty a legacy to pass up.
It was either this, or a shirtless Bruce Pearl. (photo credit: afrothunder.wordpress.com)
On Monday’s “Tirico and Van Pelt” program on ESPN Radio, the first question Mike Tirico asked Coach Knight was about the possibility of Knight taking the Georgia job. You know Coach Knight’s response (as above). But later on in that interview, in my opinion, came a more telling moment. Mr. Tirico asked Knight about how he communicates with his son Pat after incidents like the one Pat just had down at Texas Tech, and specifically inquired whether the conversation more resembles that of a father-son interaction or if it is more like two coaches talking shop (a great question). In his response, Knight hesitated for a moment, and then stated, “I just can’t stay away from it, Mike…” and explained that he basically let Pat consult him with basketball-related questions from time to time. I don’t blame Pat Knight for this, of course — I mean, who wouldn’t occasionally call up their winningest-NCAA-men’s-coach-ever-dad for some coaching advice if they had the chance? — but does Bob Knight’s response to the Tirico question sound like a man who is ready to leave the coaching profession behind? When your name comes up as a possible candidate for a coaching job and you’re saying things in interviews like “I can’t stay away from it,” no matter how you try to downplay your interest, I’m going to call you on it.
For what it’s worth, I totally agree with rtmsf’s earlier piece about Knight not being a good fit for Georgia (that second photo makes me think I’m personally a GREAT fit for UGA, but I digress). He’d be a basketball coach going to a football school and I can’t see Bob Knight going anywhere where he doesn’t have the biggest office and, as Mel Brooks would say, the biggest schwartz, as it were. And, as Mark Schlabach reported in a phone interview on ESPN.com on Monday night, the current president of the University of Georgia is Michael F. Adams. And who is Dr. Adams good friends with? Dr. Myles Brand, the current president of the NCAA…and the man who fired Knight from Indiana in 2000. Methinks the current UGA administration and Mr. Knight might not see eye-to-eye on a few matters.
The Smiling General. (photo credit: lubbockonline.com)
But Knight has never been one to back down from a challenge. It might not be the best idea for Knight to go to UGA. It’s also not a great idea to throw chairs across floors, physically threaten your AD, or hurl plants in your office, but that didn’t stop him. Listen, I have no problem with Coach Knight taking the reins at some program. I can’t blame a man who think he still has it in him to achieve excellence — and indeed, further cement his “all-time” status by breaking that 1000-win barrier. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be known as the all-time greatest at what you do. I’d miss his wit on the GameDay set, but who knows, maybe he’ll take this job and be reborn and make everyone forget about Dennis Felton and Jim Harrick. I don’t think it’s the best fit, but he could certainly prove me and rtmsf wrong. In my view, though, despite his attempts to downplay the issue and make it seem like he’s not interested, I think we have a lot of evidence to the fact that he’s either considering the job…or he likes the attention, and at least wants us to think he’s considering it.
Interesting article by Luke Winn about Wake Forest’s James Johnson’s fighting background. All I know is that if there is a “Malice at the Palace” moment with Wake this year, I’m taking the Demon Deacons in that one.
Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette surveyed 50 media members for their picks for the National Player of the Year at this point in the season. Like Michael, I haven’t seen much stuff done on this yet. Look for a running column similar to this out of Rush the Court in the near future.
A fairly long piece talking about the effect of moving the 3-point line back a foot. Summary: It has decreased the number of 3-point shots only marginally (18.42 per game from 19.07 last year) and decreased 3-point percentage slightly (34.32% from 35.23% last year).
Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt offers his thoughts on the prep-to-pro issue. While I agree with him on some stuff I am not sure how you could legally differentiate a Lebron James from a Kwame Brown or worse yet a kid who entered the draft, but was not selected.
Seth Davis plays “Jigsaw Man” looking at a dozen top 25 teams, identifying their weakness, and picking out a player who does not play on that team that could eliminate the weakness. Interestingly theoretical exercise, but I’m not that sure what to do with it. Example: NJIT. Weakness = Talent/Inability to win (more than 1 game in a row). Missing piece: UNC’s or UConn’s players.
Speaking of SI writers, where is Grant Wahl’s annual “Magic 8″? I hope rtmsf’s “deconstruction” of last year’s Magic 8 (and subsequent e-mail conversation about the Magic 8, life, and haircare products) did not convince Wahl to give up on writing about college basketball.
File this one under “Jokes that I would really like to make, but can’t. . .” Jin Soo Kim, the first Korean to earn a D1 basketball scholarship, has been ruled academically ineligible at Maryland.
Thayer Evans and Pete Thamel of the New York Times with a great piece about the influence of Skip Prosser on the current Wake Forest team. Many people don’t realize that Prosser was actually the architect of this team as he recruited all of the current players. However, a great deal of credit has to go to Dino Gaudio for keeping the team together after Prosser’s death in 2007. I’m guessing this will become a bigger story if Wake Forest can stay near the top of the polls late into the season.
We have touched on the APR issue before, but now it looks like the NCAA is looking at extending APR ratings to include coaches. I am not sure if this is necessary since coaches rarely switch schools over short periods of time and I have a feeling the methodology will be questioned on how a student-athlete’s academic performance at a school will affect a coach’s APR after the coach has left that school.
Another story out of the SEC as Alabama’s Ronald Steele has decided to forgo the remainder of his senior season citing ongoing injury issues. It is a sad end to what was a promising career. I still remember some of the hype coming out of the South about this explosive guard. We wish Ronald the best and hope he at least got a good education at Alabama.
Pete Thamel with an interesting piece on Arinze Onuaku, who will likely be the key to Syracuse’s chances of making a run deep into the tournament in March.
An interesting account of Bill Self’s recent interaction with John Wall, the #1 recruit in the nation. I’m amazed that Self could be this reckless, but to be honest this seems like a rather minor infraction compared to other stuff that goes on.
The news is piling up again, so let’s knock one of these out quickly today…
The injury bug continues to strike the nation’s #1 UNC Tarheels. Tyler Zeller broke his wrist in a breakaway foul near the end of last night’s game vs. Kentucky (see below video) and will likely be out for the remainder of the season.
Here are your 2012-16 F4 sites, in order: New Orleans, Atlanta, Dallas, Indianapolis, Houston. The dirty south is the place to be, sayeth the NCAA.
Caught this in a brief mention – did you know that former NBA guard David Wesley is now the equipment manager at Baylor? Apparently he’s finishing his degree there and is using his time to help out the team. We think that’s just awesome.
It would be shameful if UAB lost out on its best recruit, um, EVER, because they won’t promise to release DeMarcus Cousins if his presumptive coach, Mike Davis, leaves the program. Get some stones, UAB.
Everyone’s favorite sideline reporter Erin Andrews gives her top college basketball venues in an interview. She also mentions that she would have liked to have attended UCLA, USC or Texas had she not gone to Florida. Interesting.
I’m not even sure where to begin with this post. Here at RTC, we have discussed OJ Mayo several times most recently in what rtmsf myopically thought would be a final retrospective on the latest OJ to grace the USC campus. As pretty much everyone knows by now Mayo has been implicated in a rather large scandal involving Bill Duffy Agency (BDA) and Rodney Guillory, who appears to have been essentially hired by BDA to bring Mayo to them.
Most of my knowledge on the topic comes from Kelly Naqi’s Outside the Lines report I saw on Sunday morning while I was staying at a beach resort so this isn’t going to be some deep NY Times investigative piece that some of you may be expecting from RTC–we’ll work on that over the summer. Instead, I think it’s more interesting to consider the impact this will have on USC and recruiting/college basketball in general given the hype that Mayo brought with him to USC and the manner in which he handled his recruitment of USC–yes, the way he recruited USC.
According to the OTL report, Guillory gave Mayo cash, a flat-screen television, cell phones, hotel rooms, clothes, meals, and airline tickets. Given Mayo’s celebrity status, it’s pretty hard to believe that Tim Floyd and others at USC didn’t notice this was going on. Some prescient writers like Gregg Doyel even warned USC about the specific threat as early as 2006, but USC never did anything about it. Floyd and USC just looked the other way and hoped nobody else would notice or at least that nobody would give them up while they raked in the money from the increased attendance and sales of Mayo’s jerseys. The transgressions are not at the same level as those involving Reggie Bush’s family at USC, but these directly involved a player (Mayo) while the majority of the financial benefit in the Bush situation appears to have been reaped by Bush’s parents who stayed at a million dollar house essentially for free.
The big question now is what the NCAA will do about it. There have been several reports over the past year that the NCAA has investigated Mayo thoroughly, but did not find anything. Given the amount of evidence presented in the OTL piece, it’s hard to imagine that the NCAA spent much time digging into Mayo if they never came across any of this stuff. Ever since Yahoo! Sports broke the Reggie Bush allegations, Internet message boards have been abuzz first with what sanctions would be levied against the Trojans and when none came with conspiracy theories about how the NCAA was protecting the Trojans while being much more harsh on other teams such as a dominant football power on the East Coast (Miami). Compounding the fans fury was the seeming indifference of the sports media outside of Yahoo! Sports (read: ESPN) to really go after USC. Fans claimed that ESPN was trying to protect its sacred cow as ESPN had hyped up the Trojans to the point where they ran a week-long segment on where the Trojans ranked historically even before their Rose Bowl game against Texas, which they lost thanks to a super-human performance by Vince Young (I Heart VY). Now that ESPN has decided to join the attack against USC, it will be interesting to see if the mainstream sports media will turn up the heat on the NCAA (still waiting for the SI cover asking USC to cancel its athletic program). For those of you who think I may be going too far, the list of transgressions by USC athletes goes far beyond Bush and Mayo and includes recent charges against athletes ranging from dealing drugs to weapons possession to sexual assault.
While I’m not on board with Pat Forde’s reactionary death penalty column, I think the NCAA should come down pretty hard on USC. I am not sure what the precedent is for multi-sport probation, but given the multiple transgressions by the USC football team and the Mayo fiasco that anybody could have seen coming, its pretty clear that the Athletic Director Mike Garrett has no control over his programs or doesn’t care as long as they win. I would think that a 1- or 2-year probation with a ban on postseason play would send a pretty clear message that the NCAA won’t tolerate this kind of behavior. However, I doubt the powers that be will punish USC that severely, but USC should at least have some scholarships taken away from them in addition to the ones they lost with their poor APR performance. If the NCAA fails to do that, the Internet and the parents’ basements that bloggers inhabit will be all over them and this time the mainstream sports media with ESPN’s support will be behind them.
The story about Mayo’s recruitment is well-known as an associate of his (Guillory) entered Tim Floyd’s office and offered Mayo and his “services” to USC. When Floyd asked for Mayo’s number to speak with him, he was told that Mayo would call him. Perhaps Guillory wanted to make sure Mayo stayed within the minute limits on the plans that Guillory was paying for. Hopefully, this fiasco will convince more coaches not to get involved in these situations as it was obvious from the beginning of this relationship who was in control. At least Floyd seemed in control over the team, but it won’t be too long before some 5-star comes in with his personal coach and pushes for certain personnel moves and demands that the offense runs through him so he can get his numbers to boost his draft status.
The final issue, and potentially the most important in terms of its overall effect on college basketball, is how this will affect the NCAA’s decision on the 1-and-done rule. It’s pretty obvious that Mayo and several other stars like Michael Beasley were never going to spend a minute more than required in college before jumping to the NBA. If it’s going to be like that for the next generation of college stars, I wonder if the trade-off is worth it. As much as opposing fans like to knock Tyler Hansbrough and J.J. Redick, they embody what we used to love about the college game with guys staying 4 years and developing their games and fans identifying teams with players and not just the coaches manning the sidelines. Unfortunately, Tyler and J.J. are not the caliber of player that we saw do that in the 1980s. College hoops fans need to face the reality that we will never see a Lebron James (would have finished his senior year last year) or Dwight Howard (would have finished his senior year this year) having those kind of historic college careers. The question is how much is it worth to bring in guys of that caliber (or Mayo who is clearly several steps below James or Howard) in for 1 year with the risk of it blowing up an athletic program like it threatens to do at USC now. Mayo’s career and eventual legacy at USC may go a long way in determining the future of this rule.
No, not Annual Percentage Rate for all you creditworthy folks. We’re talking about the Academic Progress Report (APR) for men’s basketball (who is regularly the lowest rated sport in D1). Today the NCAA released the numbers that track athletes’ success (2003-07) in the classroom through retention, eligibility and graduation, and it appears that things are going to get a little dicey for some name-brand programs over the next twelve months.
The APR has two classes of penalty – immediate and historic. Immediate penalties are levied when a program is below the cutoff score of 925 (approximating a 60% graduation rate), and one of their players withdraws from the institution, does not return the following fall term and would not have otherwise been eligible to compete during the regular academic term following his departure. This year, Kansas St., Purdue, Seton Hall, South Carolina, Tennessee and USC were the BCS programs subject to a one-scholarship loss due to this penalty (see Table A below). K-State, Purdue, UT and USC are particularly on notice, as each of these programs could lose as many as two scholarships next year should their APRs not improve.
Historic penalties are levied upon programs that have trouble consistently reaching a threshold of 900 on the APR metric. The sanctions associated with these penalties are far more severe, and can ultimately result in reduced practice time, banishment from postseason play and restricted membership in Division 1 athletics. This year among the BCS programs, only Colorado and USC were placed on public notice that their historical profile is lagging. Should their poor APR scores (<900) continue another year, then the Buffs and Trojans could face a scholarship and/or practice time reduction in the 2009-10 season. As an example of what not to do, the basketball programs at New Mexico St., Centenary and East Carolina are already one year away from facing a postseason ban based on three consecutive years of failing scores on the APR. While Colorado doesn’t seem to care much about hoops, USC, with its high-profile coach and the sparking new Galen Center, certainly wants to avoid this fate if it can (note:OJ Mayo and Davon Jefferson’s early exits will not help the Trojans’ APR in 2008-09).
Table B below shows some of the other notable non-BCS basketball programs and how they fared on this year’s APR. Memphis, who is already on the cusp of the threshold, could end up getting slammed by this season’s exodus.
We also thought it might be somewhat informative to see how the BCS conferences do individually. See Table C below. The ACC is clearly doing the best of the big six conferences, with only Clemson and Maryland under the 925 cutoff (neither are below the 900 threshold). The SEC, while managing to avoid last place, has seven teams under the 925 mark this year (58.3% of its teams). The Big East has five, but that only represents 31.3% of its members. As far as we can tell, there isn’t much of a correlation with our 2007 Athlademic Ratings from last summer.
The NCAA appears to be holding fast on its promise to hold schools accountable for keeping its athletes eligible. AAZone’s Josh Centor, for one, thinks that the APR is working.
For the skeptics who believe the penalties are soft, look at the 26 teams that have entered the historical phase of the structure this year. Those programs have failed to change their behavior and will face restricted scholarships, recruiting and practice time. If the academic performance of those teams doesn’t get better, the penalties will become more severe. Next year, postseason bans will be in the mix and along with the scholarship reductions, those penalties are as strong as the ones doled out for major infractions cases.
It’s going to be interesting to see how these programs that are already on the cusp of sanctions respond to these challenges.
Update: Seth Emerson reports that critics of the APR system are wondering if there’s any teeth to it at all, citing the fact that 69.3% of institutions that were eligible to be penalized were given waivers this year. Our favorite exception – let’s call it the South Carolina St. Rule – allows a waiver if a team’s APR is above that of the general student body.Yeah, we’d agree that if a team is outperforming the rest of the students, then either the whole school needs to be shuttered; or, the APR is rendered rather meaningless.
Anthony Schoettle of the Indianapolis Business Journal reports on a very interesting development: the NCAA and NBA are planning on developing year-round training programs for high-school players with academies for elite players and conduct sanctioned tournaments and leagues. In addition, they are also considering training programs for coaches and officials (hello, Tim Donaghy) and finding corporate sponsors for the program (as if commercializing the sport wasn’t enough).
While we agree that youth basketball in the US is rampant with shady dealings and kids these days don’t learn fundamentals, we get the sense that these two organizations are more concerned about their own interests. By taking over AAU and high school basketball, both organizations can control the supply of their product (that is all these kids are to the NCAA and NBA) and mold it just the way they would like.
If we had our way, Myles Brand and David Stern would be questioned on issues like this, but somehow we think they will get their way without too much resistance if they really want it.
More news and notes from a busy first week of practice.
Everyone is piling on Kelvin Sampson for his phone indiscretions. AOL Fanhouse looks into the poor cell phone service excuse, while DeCourcy takes shots at IU’s compliance office. One blogger wrote an open letter to Kelvin Sampson asking him to just go away. Yesterday Sampson resisted talking about the issue at his press conference.
Speaking of Indiana coaches causing trouble, the NCAA instituted a point of emphasis this year on abusive behavior by coaches on the sideline. M2M has the definitive take on this.
More IU-related content: Bob Knight felt the need to talk about the MLB playoffs during his presser this week.
Basketball Prospectus is up and running (woohoo!) – the first post that captured our attention was this one on what makes an assist an assist?
MJ expects to watch his son sit the bench play at least once this year in Champaign.
On Monday it was official that Mike Hopkins would succeed Jim Boeheim at Syracuse upon his retirement; by Tuesday, it wasn’t official anymore.
So what really went down in practice between OJ Mayo and Daniel Hackett? Was it an errant ‘bow or a flat-out haymaker to the schnozz?
One of the underrated coaches at an underrated program, Randy Bennett at St. Mary’s got a two-year extension (through 2013).
Katz dissects the budding UCLA-USC rivalry, comparing it to UNC-Duke. What he fails to mention is that SoCallers don’t care about college hoops nearly as much as the NCers. That’s a Laker area, through and through.
Injuries, Suspensions, etc.
Is Brook Lopez planning on playing this year? He’s already out for the first nine games – now he’s indefinitely suspended for breaking team rules, which means he can’t even practice.
Wisconsin starter Michael Flowers is going on a leave of absence for the cryptic reason of ”medical problems.”
Notre Dame super-soph Luke Harongody will miss 3-6 weeks with damage to his thumb ligaments.
Mizzou senior forward Darryl Butterfield was arrested for domestic assault and suspended indefinitely by the team.
Remember our pal Frank Tolbert? The good state of Alabama did not agree with local prosecutors that Tolbert was drunk while stealing driving his SUV away from the towing lot. He is not expected to miss any games.
A bunch of UK players are injured in various ways. Oh, and Alex Legion isn’t hurt, but his mom is some kind of prophet.
Luke Winn spent the week slurping up whatever they’re selling in the RTP these days.
Meanwhile, Jeff Goodman did a Tennessee three-step – Memphis, Vandy & UT.
SEC:TGTBTD has it’s all-SEC teams ready – 3d Team, 2d Team, 1st Team (Chris Lofton, Jamont Gordon, Patrick Beverly, Richard Hendrix, Shan Foster).
Gary Parrish has his all-american teams + 10 ready (we like his balls to put Derrick Rose on the first team).
Big 12 talk – apparently K-State is loading up on players, while KU is striking out on recruiting. Yahoo asks if the Big 12 will ever win a title again, and oh yeah, Tom Osborne is the new AD at Nebraska.
Will Florida even make the NCAA Tourney this year? Billy D. isn’t sure.
Can UConn’s AJ Price stay away from the computer lab this year? Jim Calhoun thinks he can.
Lost amidst all the Midnight Madness celebrations this weekend was news from Indiana that head coach Kelvin Sanctions Sampson was caught violating the terms of his agreement with the NCAA related to recruiting violations while he was at Oklahoma. Citing “an environment of deliberate noncompliance” in May 2006, the NCAA Infractions Committee placed several restrictions on Sampson for making excessive phone calls to recruits. One of the key added restrictions was that Sampson was not allowed to initiate phone calls to recruits or be present when a staff member made such calls for a year hence. The meat:
Therefore, his current employing institution shall, pursuant to the provisions of NCAA Bylaw 19.5.2.2 (l), show cause why it should not be penalized if it does not prohibit the former head coach, for a period of one year from the date of the release of this report (May 25, 2006 through May 24, 2007), from 1) making any phone calls that relate in any way to recruiting or being present when members of his staff make such calls; and 2) engaging in any off-campus recruiting activities.
So what does he do? He makes phone calls to recruits, of course.
IU athletic director Rick Greenspan said a two-month review determined that on approximately 10 occasions, an assistant coach initiated three-way calls that connected Sampson into an on-going recruiting conversation with prospective student-athletes, their parents or coaches.
Indiana, fearing that the NCAA would come down hard on the program for such an egregious violation of noncompliance by their coach, handed out its own punishment to Sampson this weekend. As a result, Sampson will not receive his scheduled $500k raise this season and the team will lose a scholarship for the 2008-09 campaign (nevermind that IU recruit Bud Mackey effectively surrendered his scholarship back to IU a couple of weeks ago). The assistant coach who initiated the calls will also give up his raise and not be allowed to recruit away from campus. Here’s Sampson’s explanation:
All of the calls were kids that were calling me. Our coaches did a great job in telling kids that ‘Coach can’t you call you because of the sanctions so will you call him?’ And that’s what we did. I found out about the three-way calls after they looked at the records. They saw that there had been three-way calls made and found out that Rob (Senderoff) had, after the kid had called me and tried to reach me on my cell phone, they would call coach Senderoff back and say ‘Coach Sampson was unavailable. I tried him on his cellphone.’ So what Rob was doing was patching the calls into me, and I was getting them not knowing that Rob had made the connection. But when I answered the phone in these situations, the kid would start talking.
Will this be enough to satisfy the NCAA? We’re not sure about that, but we are a little appalled that Kelvin & Co. had the cojones to run the same trick again. This willful noncompliance on the part of his staff suggests that IU fans may have reason for concern. One of the oft-repeated statements during the weekend by IU brass was that Indiana basketball has not had a major NCAA violation since 1960. Sampson is clearly pushing the envelope with his bosses, and many fans remain skeptical of his legitimacy based upon issues he had at Oklahoma. It’ll be interesting to see what, if any, opinion of Sampson changes with the likelihood of IU’s best team in years taking the court this season.
Update: Say what you want about Sampson’s wilfullness here, but nobody can accuse him of covering things up (yet). Apparently an intern in the compliance department was the person who uncovered these phone calls. He likely works for free school credit, and yet he’s costing Kelvin Sampson $500k/year. Memo to intern – probably don’t want to hit up the IU head man for a rec anytime soon.(h/t March to Madness)
Yesterday the NCAA released its latest graduation rate figures for all D1 athletes who entered school in the classes of 1997-2000. Unlike the federally-mandated graduation rate, the GSR (Graduate Success Rate) is more realistic for athletes – it gives each player six years to complete his degree and it does not count transfer students against a school (reflecting the reality of athlete puddle-jumping for playing time in D1).
The latest GSR figures show that 77 percent of student-athletes who began college from 1997-2000 graduated within six years. That four-year graduation rate is unchanged from last year’s data and up from 76 percent two years ago.
The Graduation Success Rate for men’s basketball rose from 55.8 percent in 1995 to 63.6 percent in 2000, a 7.8 percent increase. Football increased from 63.1 percent to 66.6 percent for teams competing in the Bowl Subdivision and from 62 percent to 64.7 percent for teams competing in the Championship Subdivision. Baseball increased from 65.3 percent to 67.3 percent.
Gary is Too Busy to Worry About Graduation Rates
Since the NCAA doesn’t provide a sortable database of team information (or at least we can’t find it), we decided to quickly throw together some tables showing how the BCS schools performed in this cohort. Gary Williams should be especially proud of himself. Seriously, Gary, the best you can do with those Juan Dixon/Lonny Baxter teams is zero?!?Not even ONE player???
Thoughts.
At the high end, Florida St. at 100% makes us wonder if any of these stats are credible. Then again, Florida is also at 100%, and these numbers are around 2000, so maybe there was a hanging chad issue or something. We’re also amazed that Eddie Sutton’s band of merry criminals men led the Big 12.
At the low end, Jim Calhoun at UConn, Lute Olson at Arizona, Tim Floyd/Larry Eustachy at Iowa St., Ron Jirsa/Jim Harrick at Georgia, and the seediest of all, Clem Haskins at Minnesota, join Gary Williams in the dregs of their respective conferences. What a list of slimy characters there.
The Pac-10 is surprisingly low, given that Stanford, Cal, UCLA and USC are all great schools. Especially Stanford – how can Mike Montgomery justify graduating only 2/3 of his players? Guess he doesn’t have to at this point – or does he? And the SEC is surprisingly high, with Alabama, the Mississippi schools and South Carolina doing well.
We may have more thoughts on this later, but we’re heading for the airport at the moment, so it’ll have to wait.
Nothing like 100-degree heat to make you think college hoops, right:
Our future Prez (ca. 2016 unless some redneck jacks him first) was a baller! Barack Obama starred at D3 Occidental College back in the day (highlights here – let’s hope his FT shooting acumen is not indicative of a lack of concentration under pressure)
FAMU head coach Mike Gillespie was fired for stalking his ex-girlfriend – and yes, because you wouldn’t need a girlfriend unless it were so, he is married.
What the hell is going on at Ball St.? Coach Ronny Thompson (son of JT2) resigned in July, leaving in his wake an athletic dept smeared by his cries of racism and unfairness (also leaving a 9-22 first year record on the table). The two black Ws – Wilbon and Whitlock – chime in with conflicting viewpoints on the situation, and new head coach Billy Taylor (from Lehigh) is now left with a mess to clean up. Why couldn’t David Letterman take care of this?
The NCAA says no more Pembroke States and UC-Davises in D1 for four years.
Al Skinner is getting a raise from BC. He’d better sign that extension quickly because Tyrese Rice by himself probably can’t cash those checks in 2007-08.
Im-ass is getting sued for slander by one of the “nappy-headed hos” at Rutgers. The conservatorium is up in arms over this, but we’re not really following their logic – are they really saying that this woman (and her teammates) were not defamed by Imus’s comments? Seriously?
Celebrations ensue in Madison, Columbus and other places midwestern as the Big 10 Network released its 2008 hoops schedule. We’ve already circled that Feb. 6 tilt between Minnesota and Northwestern on our iPhone.
W4M: ISO orange-clad GOB who won’t be offended by mannish tendencies and spirited versions of Rocky Top. Must be willing to be dominated in life and bedroom. Appreciates the nuances and subtleties of women’s sports (read: boring and lame).
ESPN invented a way to air OJ Mayo three times early in the season – create a new Tournament! The Anaheim Classic features USC and a bunch of mid-majors. Expect to see The Juice Deux on tv a LOT this upcoming season.
We’ve never heard of an athletic department bailing out the academic side of the shop, but we’ve also never seen an athletic juggernaut like Florida either.
Gary Parrish exposes the seamier side of recruiting in this article. Wait, there’s a seamier side? We thought the whole thing was slimy to begin with.
MMAS puts forth its summer thoughts in two detailed postings about (mostly) BCS teams, but there are some valuable insights here. Btw, we agree about the Vols.
The WWL has an interesting piece on how teams push the envelope with the rules to get an edge.
Rivals is well under way with its Top 64 teams of 2007-08.
As a short follow-up to the Donaghy scandal, the NCAA released the following information to espn.com regarding the measures it takes to ensure that its officials are clean (RTC’s comments below in bold):
NCAA (basketball) • The NCAA produces a video that is provided to each of the officials selected for the NCAA championship. The video warns of the dangers of gambling.
[Wow! A video! Reminds us of 9th grade.]
• All officials eligible to be selected to work the championship are subject to random, thorough background checks.
[Covered this yesterday. How thorough could these checks be? What predictive value do they have?]
• There are security and operational plans for officials, which the NCAA does not discuss publicly.
[This just sounds like "we don't want you to know what we don't know."]
• The NCAA works with law enforcement authorities on the local, state and federal levels in the handling of any inquiries, concerns or issues, should any arise.
[Working with the police? This sounds like measures used ex post facto, not preventive in any way.]
• The NCAA does not bring the referees who work the national title game into the city until the day of the game. The NCAA used to bring them in for the weekend, but they didn’t want the referees to be exposed, visible and have everyone know who they are prior to the title game.
[Was this rule instituted before phones and the internet?]
• Officials are also subject to extensive background checks.
[Just in case you forgot from above.]
Is This the NCAA Instructional Video?
As we stated rather longwindedly yesterday, there are ginormous (new Webster’s word this year – look it up) holes in the controls that ensure the integrity of NCAA basketball officials. Almost everything the NCAA stated above is designed for one purpose and one purpose only – CYA – to be able to say that it performed its due diligence the next (first?) time a Donaghy is uncovered in college athletics.
Perhaps the reason that a Donaghy has yet to be discovered in the NCAA has everything to do with the complete lack of oversight of most of its officials and nothing to do with some pie-in-the-sky notion that the NCAA has things under control. As The Commish said, NBA officials are the most scrutinized referees in the world, and yet Donaghy still eluded discovery through the League’s objective measurements. How on earth would anyone know if a Big West or Atlantic 10 official was doing what Donaghy did (assuming he doesn’t go overboard to tip off the gambling establishment)?
The short answer is that there is no way to know unless the official slips up. Donaghy’s mistake was that he was betting with illegal bookies, which ultimately led him down the primrose path to the inevitable symbiotic relationship that we saw exposed last week. The NCAA certainly doesn’t have the institutional wisdom or resources that the NBA has, but the above measures (and those outlined yesterday by the ACC and Big Ten) leave us asking for considerably more…
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