1. This is around the time of the year when the felonies start.  We guess that players get out of school, start feeling the summer heat and lose their minds.  Or something.  UNLV’s Tre’Von Willis, a first team all-MWC junior guard last season, was arrested Tuesday on felony charges of domestic battery by strangulation and grand larceny.  The person Willis allegedly strangled was his 28-year old girlfriend, which begs the question whether Willis may have been watching old Chapelle episodes before the incident.  There’s been no comment from UNLV head coach Lon Kruger yet, but obviously Willis is a big part of what he is expecting to put on the floor next season.  It’ll be interesting to see how he handles this one.
2. We figure that you’ve been on pins and needles all summer waiting for this decision, but the WAC announced yesterday that it will not expand in 2011.  What does this mean?  Well, with the loss of Boise State to the MWC after the 2010-11 season, the WAC will operate as an eight-team league for at least one year.  How quaint — an eight-team league.
3. What, no Craigslist?  This AP report examines the secondary market for tickets to NCAA events in light of the recent Kansas scandal.  Although we didn’t know that the NCAA had embraced Razorgator as its online ticket broker, it’s nice to see folks waking up as to how many people acquire ducats to these events.
4. So how much will Colorado have to pay for the privilege of leaving the Big 12 and moving to the Pac-10?  Probably about $10M more than they expected (had the Big 12 dissolved, as they undoubtedly thought would happen).
5. Coach K will talk one-on-one with Alabama football head coach Nick Saban on Wednesday night on Sirius XM radio, and we’re half tempted to listen to it just to see if the irresistible force/immovable object thing is really true.  Well, that and to see if the Russian spies show up.

1. Did you catch that NBA Draft last night?  We’ll have much more up about the 2010 version in a post later today, but for now we’ll just say that even though we know that college stars cannot always translate to the professional level, it still bothers us to see tremendous collegians like Scottie Reynolds, Omar Samhan, Jon Scheyer and many others left on the outside looking in.  Best of luck in wherever your careers take you, fellas; we really enjoyed watching you play.
2. Why wait to start projecting for the 2011 NBA Draft, though?  DraftExpress’ Jonathan Givony lists his top thirty prospects for next year’s draft and it has a particularly Duke and Carolina flavor in it.  And Georgia?  Yes, Georgia.
3. Kansas is putting an end to a rough school year by hiring a new auditor to oversee its athletic department in light of the ticket-scalping scandal they endured earlier this year.  Probably a good idea.
4. This is intriguing.  The NCAA is proposing to make a rule that high school players cannot be offered scholarships until the summer between their junior and senior years.  It’s not a bad thought.  Coaches could still get wink/nod/secret handshake agreements with players well before that time, but at least from a public standpoint, it would take away some of the insanity with the recruitment of players who are barely old enough to drive (or younger if you’re Billy Gillispie).
5. ESPY nominees relating to college hoops:  1) Best game – Duke vs. Butler (odds: 35%); 2) Best Breakthrough Athlete – John Wall, Kentucky (odds: 40%); 3) Best Championship Performance – Anthony Johnson, Montana (odds: 5%); 4) Best Upset: Northern Iowa over Kansas (odds: 75%); 5) Best Coach/Manager: Coach K (odds: 15%); 6) Best Male College Athlete: Evan Turner (odds: 25%) & John Wall (odds: 40%).  Get over there and vote.

1. It’s NBA Draft day, which means we get one last chance to talk about players such as Tiny Gallon, Jerome Randle, Manny Harris and Derrick Caracter before they fade off into basketball oblivion.  Be sure to check out our mock draft and each of our draft profiles for the projected first round collegians to get ready for tonight.
2. The NCAA’s Basketball Focus Group: an interesting idea.  Just give it some teeth, gumshoes.
3. Just to ensure that Texas the remaining Big 12 doesn’t get too big for its britches, Oklahoma president David Boren confirmed yesterday that the Sooners had an invitation on the table to join Texas A&M as members of an expanded SEC.  Boren said that the school wanted to stay with its group and keep its traditional rivals Oklahoma State and Texas nearby (keep your enemies closer, perhaps?), though, so they turned down the offer.
4. This is a pretty strong article from New York magazine that just came to our attention recently about the last great basketball scout, Tom Konchalski.  For some reason, in the real-time twitter/blogger/facebook era, the fact that his scouting only comes via US Mail on paper is cool, in a retro sorta way.
5. YABB’s the State of Coaching post is out, and very well done as always.  Seriously, spend fifteen minutes with this thing and understand what he’s doing there.  It’s very good stuff.

The latest wrinkle is that, according to the boys (and girl) over at KentuckySportsRadio.com, Bledsoe might sue whoever let his high school transcript end up in the hands of the national media.  The NCAA has certainly had copies of the transcript for some time, since that’s something any prospective student-athlete at the NCAA level has to submit as part of the process.  But it seems like pretty much everyone’s now privy to what was supposed to be confidential as of three days ago, and — given what people would find on the college transcripts of a couple of the guys around here if they were ever made public — we can see how Bledsoe would be pretty ticked.  We doubt Bledsoe has family members who have copies of his high school transcript, and certainly none who would just hand it over to anyone, so if ESPN.com and the like all have copies of his transcript from both his junior and senior year high schools, it seems that documentation of that nature could have only come from either the senior-year school, the colleges to which Bledsoe applied (watch for this possibility to gain speed in the near future), or the NCAA itself — all entities he should be able to trust.  We can certainly understand Bledsoe’s anger.

Whether or not Bledsoe moves forward with a lawsuit could tell us a lot about this situation, though, because whoever he names as a party in the suit could then subpoena his high school transcripts and any supporting documentation.  In other words, if — and yes, it’s still an “if” — there’s any impropriety there, it will come out in discovery.  If he and/or his handlers on this think that there’s something there that they don’t want to come to light, it would be better for Kentucky if Bledsoe didn’t go ahead with his lawsuit.  And let’s be honest, Eric Bledsoe is about to be a multi-millionaire.  He’s days away from being drafted into the NBA, and he has no reason to concern himself with any of this.  Assuming this isn’t a PR move of the Roger Clemens/Barry Bonds variety, if Bledose files his lawsuit against people who leaked his transcript or obtained them by suspect means, then he and his advisors must like the cards they’re holding.

The other aspect of this that we find interesting is that, no matter what websites, newspapers, or blogs you read, no matter whose Twitter feeds you follow, the lines on this are being drawn not so much by the details of the whole scenario, but rather by how each writer/blogger/tweeter feels about John Calipari, who hasn’t yet been implicated in any of this.  We’re not apologizing for the man, but the fact remains that he hasn’t been brought up in any of this so far.  There are many facets of this story that we find intriguing — how does a kid go from a 1.9 to a 2.5 in a year? How can the NCAA be investigating but not formally alert the school?  Who leaked the transcript? If this non-investigation has been going on since February, why has it dragged on until well after the season was over?  How will UK fans feel about their program if the NCAA wields the pimp hand? — but those are being largely ignored by all but a select few, with people seemingly letting their opinion of Calipari determine how they feel about a matter in which his name hasn’t surfaced.  If Bledsoe is ruled ineligible and the NCAA says that Kentucky has to forfeit its 35 wins from last season, that would be the time to examine how it might affect Calipari’s coaching career, because it would be one heck of a debate.  But, to be honest, there are other areas in this matter that are more compelling right now.

]]> http://rushthecourt.net/2010/05/31/bledsoe-may-take-this-to-court-of-a-different-kind/feed/ 0 http://rushthecourt.net/2010/05/27/morning-five-05-27-10-edition/ http://rushthecourt.net/2010/05/27/morning-five-05-27-10-edition/#comments Thu, 27 May 2010 06:02:32 +0000 rtmsf http://rushthecourt.net/?p=21753

1. A group in the Kansas athletic department has allegedly been bilking the university by an estimated $1-$3 million dollars in tickets to KU basketball and football games over the past half-decade as a result of a “blind spot” in the school’s auditing processes.  Over 17,000 basketball tickets and 2,000 football tickets were used in ways that included selling choice seats to brokers and offering freebies to neighbors.  This LA Times article about the two prominent SoCal ticket brokers who may have been involved in the scheme said other schools (unnamed) were also involved. Athletic Director Lew Perkins was not named in any of the allegations, but he is accepting responsibility for what transpired for happening on his watch.  It really hasn’t been a very good academic year in Lawrence, has it?
2. The best part of this Gary Parrish article about loyalty (or lack thereof) among players and coaches?  John Brady and the word “coach” in the same sentence (three times).
3. Big East consultant and former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said yesterday that the conference is trying to be proactive with respect to dealing with expansion, if or when it comes to pass in the Big Ten.  He believes that the future success of the league ultimately will begin with the Big East’s long-standing relationship with ESPN.  We certainly don’t have the talent or experience to call his strategy into question, but at what point does ESPN reach saturation point with its multiple contracts with various leagues?
4. We haven’t discussed the Ed O’Bannon ‘likeness’ case against the NCAA in a while, but it is moving forward in Oakland and some prognosticators say that several more big names will be joining the lawsuit soon.  Fanhouse asks if this case could end up becoming the NCAA’s Erin Brockovich, and they paint a compelling picture as to how it might come to pass.
5. You know we love Vegas odds around here, so here are the very early lines you can get at Sportsbook.com as of now.  K-State, Georgetown, Missouri and Washington all look like good values.

Some sickle cells among some normal friends.

Sickle cell disease is found in about 1 in 5,000 people in the United States.  As you probably know, when you’re (*ahem*) conceived, you get half of your DNA from your father and half from your mother, and pretty much everything about you from your hair color, or your ability to go left, to the shape of some of your wonderful oxygen-carrying red blood cells is determined by that DNA.  The gene for sickle cell disease is actually a mutated version of the gene that helps you make normal red blood cells, which are shaped like round disks but a little thinner in the center.  If you have the disease, you got two bad, mutated copies of this gene from your parents, so you can call them up and give them a sarcastic thanks.  If you don’t have the disease, then you either got two good copies of the red blood cell gene, or you got one good and one bad.  If you’re in this latter group, you’re called a “carrier,” meaning there’s a chance that you could pass this trait on to any kids you have even though you don’t have the disease yourself (because your good gene dominates your bad one).  All good?  Fine.  Enough with the genetics.

If a person has this disease, they make a lot of red blood cells that don’t assume the usual round disk-like shape, but rather take on a crescent moon or sickle shape.  This type of red blood cell is often sticky and doesn’t squeeze through small blood vessels like normal ones do, so people with the disease can sometimes have episodes where arteries get clogged and restrict blood flow, thereby depriving of oxygen whatever organ or part of the body is just down the line.  Depending on the part of the body affected, these episodes (called “vaso-occlusive crises”) can range from being intensely painful to even lethal.  Some things that can cause these crises to occur are dehydration, physical exertion, and heat — conditions in which college athletes find themselves all the time, in both practices and games.

Would you want to know?

Yes, college athletes have died from this.  The opening line of the pre-vote NYT article cites the fact that of the 21 football players who have died in the last decade as a consequence of their training, eight of those were due to SSD.  Those who approve of mandatory testing for the disease state that such testing will save the lives of the student-athletes who are found to be positive.  This is intuitive, at least — though there’s no evidence-based research that proves it.  The testing itself costs anywhere from $50 to $300, and cheaper versions are being developed, not that the chance to save lives should be concerned with a price tag.  And the test — a simple blood draw — only needs to be done once in a student-athlete’s life.

There are, however, opponents to mandatory testing.  The loudest argument comes from those who feel that, because prevalence of the disease in African-Americans is eight times that of white Americans, a disproportionate number of African-American student-athletes could conceivably have the “athlete” dropped from that hyphenate, and therefore possibly the “student” part as well.  Some also feel that athletes who test positive for SSD could be discriminated against in other ways by coaches, fellow athletes, media, and so on.  On a more philosophical level, consider this — the median age at death for people with sickle cell anemia is 42 years for males and 48 years for females (it’s in the 70s for the American population as a whole).  How would you like to be 18 years old, about to start life as a student-athlete, and find out it’s almost time for a mid-life crisis?  When you were 18, how would you have handled the news that there’s a good chance that you’ll die 30 years earlier than you thought?

So, here’s the aforementioned catch:  players can opt out of testing.  A version of the measure without this option failed to pass, but the policy was adopted after this opt-out provision was added.  In other words, it’s a mandatory test…that you don’t have to take.  Not really mandatory, is it?  Another question is what the schools are supposed to do with this information?  Since this is a medical issue, are the players notified confidentially of their results?  If they test positive, is it up to them to tell their coaches?  And if you’re a coach, if you knew one of your players had the disease, could you in good conscience subject that player to strenuous practices and/or extended minutes?  Are coaches supposed to make their practices less taxing in general, and therefore risk limiting what their team could become?

No matter which side you take on the matter, there’s one positive aspect of it about which everyone can agree — if a player wants the test, at least now they have the opportunity to take it.  Even with cheap testing, most players probably wouldn’t ever have had the occasion to check themselves for this disease.  And hey, if giving student-athletes this chance is something that’s being financed by some extra revenue you expect to have lying around — say, from a new TV contract and a 96-team basketball tournament — well, even we can’t be mad at that.

The president of the NCAA and/or some other high-ups has always made it a point to take some time on the Thursday or Friday preceding the Final Four to have a press conference to talk about the NCAA Tournament in general and the tournament specific to that year.  This little get-together happened today in Indy.  The media got the chance to hear from Dan Guerrero, chair of the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee; Kevin Lennon, VP for academic and membership affairs; and one Greg Shaheen, the NCAA’s senior VP for basketball and business strategies.

Shaheen Isn't Speechless Here

RIGHT HERE is the transcript of this press conference.

IMPORTANT:  Listen, we post a lot of links on this site.  We want you to click every one of them.  We wouldn’t put them up there if we didn’t think it would enhance your enjoyment or understanding of a story or article.  But YOU MUST CLICK ON THAT LINK if you want to get a glimpse into the minds of the people who are trying to change the greatest sporting event in the world, the people who want to increase the number of teams in the NCAA Tournament from 65 to 96.

Before you do that, we need to make sure you understand something — this thing is happening.  The 96-team tournament isn’t something that’s just being discussed, anymore.  This press conference wasn’t an official announcement, but it was everything but that.  We don’t like it any more than you do, but we might as well get used to it. We know why they’re doing it.  Like Joe Pesci said in Casino:

“Always the dollars.  Always the f***in’ dollars…”

You see, the NCAA has to make a decision this summer.  Their current college basketball contract with CBS runs through 2013, but states that the NCAA can opt out of the deal by the end of this July to go searching for a better deal, meaning more money.  The current contract with CBS was finalized in 1999 and is worth about $6 billion.  It also applies to a 65-team tournament.  If they opt out, the NCAA can do whatever it wants to the tournament and market the new version (like, say, one with 96 teams) as their new product as they negotiate for even bigger bucks.  They could even renegotiate with CBS (we wonder if CBS also sees possible bigger profits and actually wants the NCAA to opt out of this thing).

Back to this press conference.  Here’s a little rundown of what happened.  First, Mr. Guerrero took the mic, and to be honest you really don’t have to read his short introduction.  He said very little and then introduced Mr. Lennon.  Lennon’s portion is quite interesting, because he used his time to tell everyone about the improved graduation and retention rates among student-athletes, specifically men’s basketball players.  He noted that student-athletes in ALL sports, and “certainly men’s basketball, are continuing to outperform the student body” as a whole.  Sounds good.

Then came Mr. Shaheen’s turn.  That’s when it got interesting.

We don’t know if he was just nervous because he was talking to a room full of people — including journalists who have one question on their minds, that of tournament expansion — or if he often uses what almost amounts to word-salad to confuse listeners and muddle the understanding of what he’s saying.  Whatever the reason, Shaheen’s contribution to the press conference was supposed to be a rundown of what’s being talked about in terms of the decision as to whether to alter the NCAA Tournament somehow or keep it as-is.  He did so, but the verbosity is ridiculous.  We’ll not speculate as to whether it was just bad public speaking habits, nervousness, or a ploy to bury his points in a slew of extra words in order to conceal what he was saying.  Just read it for yourself.

The best part came during question time.

You may know the name John Feinstein for many reasons — his columns in The Washington Post, The Sporting News, or Golf Digest; his many books about various sports; his acerbic-witted guest appearances on various sports TV and radio shows — but most likely it’s due to his authorship of A Season On the Brink, the beyond-famous book in which he chronicled the 1985-86 season of the Indiana basketball program after being given previously unheard-of access by coach Bobby Knight.

To that incomplete list, you may now say you know him for the lunch he had on Thursday afternoon.  Specifically, the grilling and devouring of Mr. Shaheen.  We told you grilling season was officially underway.

Role Reversal: Feinstein as Voice of the People

Before you check out that part of the transcript, you need to know what the NCAA is thinking of doing in a 96-team format:  the play-in game as we know it would be gone.  The tournament would start on Thursday, as it did before 2001.  The opening round would be played on Thursday and Friday.  That would leave 64 teams.  The Round of 64 would be played on Saturday and Sunday, leaving 32 teams.  The second week would start with Monday as an off-day, then resume on Tuesday and Wednesday with the Round of 32.  The Sweet 16 would be played on Thursday and Friday, putting us back on the schedule we have now.  In other words, even though they’re adding 31 teams to the tournament, they’re only adding one net day of games, and they’re packing that second week, starting it on Tuesday instead of Thursday.  It makes intuitive sense that if you’re going to add teams to the dance, you’d add them at the beginning of the first week, not force-feed them into the second — but that’s what they’re going to do.

Noticing this, Feinstein asked Shaheen about how the teams that win would be out of school the entire second week of the tournament.  Not wanting to answer this, Shaheen fenced with Feinstein and avoided the question.  Feinstein pressed, but Shaheen danced and skated in his responses in an attempt to further avoid the matter.  You can see from the transcript how bad it got for Shaheen:

FEINSTEIN: Basically they’ll be out of school an entire week the second week?

SHAHEEN: Actually, if you were to look at the window for each individual team, you have to take each team and contemplate the fact right now you have half the field leaving campus on Tuesday, returning on Sunday or Monday.

JF: If they lose. I’m talking about the teams that win in advance. You’re going to advance 16 teams.

GS: No, actually in the current model you have teams that depart on Tuesday, and even if they win, return on Sunday.

JF: We’re misunderstanding each other. Under the new model that you laid out, you play 64 teams Thursday/Friday. 32 advance to games Saturday/Sunday. Then you are down after those games to 32 teams.

GS: Right.

JF: You’re saying you play games in the round of 32 Tuesday/Wednesday. They would then advance to regionals when?

GS: They would continue into the regional as it’s normally scheduled now.

JF: So they would go Tuesday to Thursday, Wednesday to Friday?

GS: Right.

JF: So they miss an entire week of school. That’s what I’m trying to get.

GS: If you listened to my original answer, they leave now on Tuesday.

JF: I’m talking about the second week, not the first week. They play a game Saturday/Sunday, play a game Tuesday or Wednesday, then go directly to the regional. Tell me when in that second week they’re going to be in class.

GS: The entire first week, the majority of the teams would be in class.

Painful.  But it’s an utter rout by Feinstein.  We haven’t seen a guy get shredded like that since Steve Buscemi got put into the wood chipper in Fargo.  The next section is by far the best:

JF: You’re just not going to answer the question about the second week. You’re going to keep referring back to the first week, right? They’re going to miss the entire second week under this model.

GS: So they’re going to go to school the first week, and then they’re –

JF: They’re going to be under the same schedule you said basically the first week, and then they’ll miss the entire second week.

GS: I’m clearly missing the nuance of your point.

JF: You and I miss nuances a lot. Thank you.

BOB WILLIAMS [the moderator]: Next question, please.

Cutting.  Just cutting.  That’s the best word to describe it.  Shaheen had to literally be bleeding from somewhere.  He wasn’t missing the nuance of anyone’s point, of course.  The only thing he was missing by the time the moderator stepped in was his manhood.

So there it is, people.  If you thought there was a chance that this idea of a 96-team tournament was going to go away, think again.  This served as the all-but-official announcement that it’s going to happen.  You don’t talk about how you’re looking at options involving 88, 96, or the current 65 teams and then spend all the time discussing the ways a 96-team tournament would operate.  Forget the fact that they actually put a guy up on the stage to tell us how great things are going academically with things as they are now.  Forget the fact that Mr. Shaheen felt the need to bring up the name of Dr. Myles Brand, the former president of the NCAA, as someone who was at the forefront of many changes in the works in so many facets of the NCAA, including what could happen to the basketball contract as the opt-out deadline approached.  There’s one problem with that — HE’S DEAD.  Dr. Brand unfortunately died of pancreatic cancer last year and therefore can’t answer any questions about this or any other policies being considered at the NCAA.  It’s Shaheen, interim president Jim Isch — who was oddly absent from the press conference, you’ll note — and others like them who are doing this, and should be answering questions.  But they don’t want to own up to the fact that money is their motivation, so instead we just get this finessing and doublespeak.

No, with all these great statistics about how graduation rates are getting better and retention rates are on the rise and African-American student-athlete graduation rates are improving, we’re supposed to believe that taking college basketball players out of school for the entire second week of the tournament, assuming they win, is the best way to keep those rates on the upswing (isn’t this the reasoning they use NOT to implement a football playoff?).  With this new tournament format, the NCAA is telling people, “Keep winning, and you get to miss even MORE school than you did before.”  Nice message, guys.  And who will be attending those games in the second week, do you think?  Students from the participating schools?  No way.  Somebody’s got to pay for this new contract, so those tickets will go to people who can afford them, who can pay to travel, and who have the disposable income to buy more 35-dollar t-shirts and $12 cokes.

Our NCAA tournament is forever changed, and with it, so is college basketball in general.  You can’t change the tournament in a vacuum.  By changing it, you also change the regular season and the conference tournaments and what they mean.  In that transcript, you saw that even though they were asked about those things, the NCAA folks didn’t really answer those questions, because they don’t know and don’t care what happens to them.  We know the only thing they care about.

Always the f***in’ dollars.

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.

Ah, the enigma that is The General.

• 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 Brand died 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.

From the Sporting News…

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.

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.

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

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.

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:

• Was Renardo Sidney (or his handlers) aware of this when he (they) made the decision to go to Mississippi State?
• How much does Tim Floyd regret turning down that Arizona payday?
• 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. . .