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.
Seems Sir Charles was right after all. Somehow this wonderfully crafted piece by Dan Wetzel at YahooSports got past us for nearly a week before we found it. Wetzel essentially fires a Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US shot across the bow of the Good Ship NCAA, led by Capt. Myles Brand, for its notably lax invisible investigation and enforcement of NCAA rules among its two revenue cash cow sports, football and basketball.
Doing some solid investigative work himself, Wetzel concludes that it’s been nearly two years since a major college basketball program was hit with a significant violation (Kansas with Ol’ Roy’s largesse in Oct 2006), which is the longest such drought in almost a half-century. Similarly, it’s been fifteen clean months in college football since the last major violation (Oklahoma in July 2007). So the reasonable conclusion here is that the NCAA has cleaned up its high-profile sports to the point where schools are by and large playing by the rules, right? Right?
Wetzel has a slightly different take:
The NCAA has expanded its staff of investigators (its cops) to an all-time high of 20. It now has its infractions committee (its judge and jury) meet as often as seven times per year. Still, it hasn’t been this feeble at catching crooks since a 16-month stretch ending in 1962. Back then, it had one investigator. […] It never has been so obvious the NCAA is protecting its big-time programs and television money. It’s gotten to the point where Jerry Tarkanian’s legendary line about the NCAA’s selective enforcement habits – “the NCAA was so mad at Kentucky, it gave Cleveland State two more years of probation” – has become outdated. These days the NCAA doesn’t even get mad at Kentucky.
Wetzel goes on to describe just how toothless the NCAA investigations staff has become in recent years despite its recent expansion. Apparently they’re still quite excellent at catching small-school hopscotch coaches who have the audacity to text recruits outside of the mandated contact periods (check the below list from 2008). But when it comes to the power conference schools who have big money, big boosters, big media and drive the whole ship into port for the NCAA coffers, the investigators are largely missing.
What a joke. We harkened back to this problem when the OJ Mayo allegations came out last spring. With a notorious character like Rodney Guillory hanging around the USC program, how could the NCAA and the LA media have so completely missed it? We’ll buy the fact that newspapers don’t have the proper resources to perform comprehensive investigative journalism while entire newsrooms are shuttering, but the NCAA still has no excuse. Especially when we look at the above list and see what those twenty investigators have been so diligently working on for the past nine months.
We made reference yesterday to coaches like Billy Gillispie finding the grey areas of the NCAA rulebook and making those in charge make decisions. With what Wetzel has shown us, we ask, why even bother with the gray areas? Why not just start funnelling booster money directly to recruits instead of worrying about impressing them with big extravaganza weekends? Make it truly an arms race where the most-moneyed always win. Then at least we can all walk away from the stench without lying to ourselves as to what’s causing it.
Now that the gumshoes (an overly generous term if ever there was one) over at the WWL have pretty much made the case for the NCAA that OJ Mayo was taking improper benefits both before and during his short stint at USC, TrojanLand is doing all it can to respond in the most American of ways – by covering their ass.
Look Who’s Coming, Trojans! (photo credit: AP)
Anticpating an imminent NCAA investigation – after all, Myles Brand ain’t nobody’s chump – USC is battoning down the hatches and getting its story together. According to the LA Daily News:
USC intends to tell the NCAA it knew of no wrongdoing involving O.J. Mayo and banned his mentor, Rodney Guillory, from receiving tickets as an illustration of its attempt to prevent the basketball star from receiving any improper benefits, according to sources. That will be the outline of the university’s defense, according to officials familiar with the situation. “Right now, we’re just trying to weather the storm,” said a USC official, who asked not to be identified.
Sounds reasonable enough. Guillory, the man who gold-foil giftwrapped Mayo for USC, wasn’t allowed to receive tickets to games. We’re not sure exactly what that proves, as we suppose he could have simply bought tickets off of Craigslist like everyone else. But what about this little piece of prejudicial information?
But there remain some questions to this defense. Guillory was frequently seen in the basketball offices and also around the locker room, and regularly attended pickup games at the Galen Center when Mayo played last summer.
So USC’s defense is that they didn’t provide game tickets to Guillory, where unless he was literally sitting in the huddle he wouldn’t have been able to communicate with Mayo anyway; BUT, Guillory wasallowed to loiter around the locker room, the basketball offices and the pickup games (where he could ostensibly run into Mayo at any moment). We’s no lawyerin type, but that sounds like troubles in Troy.
Of course, it IS the typically-befuddled NCAA we’re talking about. They might start investigating USC and end up putting UCLA on probation.
Finishing out your week with a bunch of meaningless links – enjoy!
OJ Mayo claims he never took nothing from nobody! Apparently Mayo’s HS in Ohio (North College Hill) will keep its two titles from 2005 and 2006 – the OHSAA only gives you six weeks to contest a violation of any kind! nvr1983 update: I prefer the actual LA Times article/interview. Even though I know it is normal for athletes to get rather large gifts from agents before the draft (rtmsf and I witnessed it in 1998 with Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison and a tricked out Navigator), the last sentence is a classic.
UNC’s Alex Stepheson announced that he is transferring closer to home for family reasons (SoCal).
USC may lose a major recruit for 09 in the fallout of the Mayo scandal.
UConn guard Doug Wiggins is transferring to UMass – oh, to reminisce on what an uproar this would have caused ca. 1994.
Indiana’s former assistant coach Dan Dakich got bought out for $185k.
BYU’s Trent Plaisted signed with an agent and will stay in the NBA Draft.
Here’s Shawn Siegel’s most excellent ratings of the top ten players at each position in this year’s draft class (PGs, SGs, and more to come…)
Yes, kids, testing the waters can end up pigeonholing you and hurting your future draft position.
Jay Bilas indicts everyone and anyone related to the stink emanating from the business of basketball (and we largely agree with him). (insider only)
Gary Parrish talks about how teams are stealing players from programs going through coaching changes (Duke and UCLA are the latest beneficiaries).
If this isn’t IRONIC in the wake of Huggins’ stint at Kansas State (one-and-done), we don’t know what is…
Andy Glockner reports that the mid-majors are getting hit hard by the glut of early entries these days too.
Is college basketball being unfairly singled out for additional enforcement (vis-a-vis football) by Myles Brand?
Doc Rivers’ kid is transferring to Indiana – too bad he can’t suit up next year.
Orange & Blue Hue did a nice analysis on why Jai Lucas cost the Gators an NCAA bid this season.
Duquesne’s Kojo Mensah is staying in the NBA Draft. Yeah, the L really values 6’1 guys from small colleges who averaged 12ppg last season. Wait, Duquesne?
11 months later, Billy D. still hasn’t signed his contract extension from Florida (to be fair, neither has Billy G. at UK or Bob Huggins at WVU).
Too little, too late, Myles Brand. Is this “new info” the old info that we all already know about?
All the summer recruiting links you could ever want. You too can find an eighth grader of your own!
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.
Tough week at Pepperdine. First, their top returning player Kingsley Costain was dismissed from the school; now they don’t have anywhere to practice due to the insane fires in Malibu.
Now that Maryland has instituted a new alcohol awareness program, what’s the over/under on some Terp like James Gist getting a DWI? Or maybe it’ll be our favorite tool, Gus Gilchrist? He committed to the Terps over the weekend and will play next season.
Maybe Purdue’s Gordon Watt should transfer to Maryland now – he was kicked out of Purdue for a DWI last week.
In a nice gesture, the ACC renamed its Scholar-Athlete award in honor of Skip Prosser.
BYU extended head coach Dave Rose‘s contract through 2011.
Beginning next year, the Preseason NIT will guarantee each participant four games at on-campus sites, even for those teams that lose in the first two rounds.
We hadn’t seen this yet, but ESPN announced its College Gameday sites a week or two ago. We cannot wait until Jan. 26 – Creighton at S. Illinois.
Thankfully, Myles Brand says there will be no expansion of the NCAA Tournament anytime soon.
Raymond Felton didn’t help Roy after all – Iman Shumpert chose Georgia Tech over UNC and Marquette.
Andy Katz has a really interesting article about Kevin Love asking the Wizard of Westwood (who turned 97 Sunday) for advice. We like this kid already.
Thad Matta is hobbling around after back surgery this summer.
More Preseason Chatter –
ACC Media Days – the Research Triangle schools came in 1 (UNC), 2 (Duke), 3 (NC State) in the preseason conference poll.
Katz explains why Calipari opted to stay in Memphis over taking the NC State job two years ago.
DeCourcy gives USC some love for tough scheduling (even though they’re going to lose all those games), while he rates crosstown rival UCLA #1 in his poll.
STF gets us up to speed on what the mid-major conferences are bringing to the table this year.
SEC Hoops:TGTBTD chooses Jamont Gordon over Chris Lofton for SEC POY. Interesting…
Final thought – believe it or not, the Colorado Lady Buffaloes actually have a Brittany Spears and a Whitney Houston on their squad this season. Coke dealers in Boulder are already calculating their profits.
If those cries of agony you heard today coming from AD offices across the land, originating at the fair universities at Cincinnati, Fresno State and Iowa State (among others) had you bewildered, wonder no more. Today the NCAA released its Myles Brand-inspired bugaboo, the Academic Progress Rate (APR), to hordes of facepainted denizens ready to storm the castle at these bastions of academe and throw the louts (coaches) out. Now that academic performance, er, progress, is tied to reductions in scholarships, practice & game time, and ultimately postseason eligibility, a coach cannot (should not?) simply round up the three nearest Lloyd Daniels and Skip to my Lous and call it a class, can he?
Myles Brand is coming after your school!
Well, he can if he moves on to another school before the APR kicks in. None of the head coaches at these three schools for the years considered by the APR (2003-2006) – Bob Huggins (Cincinnati); Ray Lopes (Fresno St.); Wayne Morgan (Iowa St.) – are still around at their respective universities, having left academic quagmires in their wake that the new coaches and administrators must now sort out. Much like hepatitis A after a bender to Laos, it’s the gift that keeps on giving!
We don’t mean to pick on these coaches, as 44% of their peer institutions in Division 1 basketball also had three-year APR averages under the NCAA minimum requirement of 925 (out of 1000), and the national average was only 927. Fresno St. (787), Cincinnati (838) and Iowa St. (852) just happen to be the three worst “name” schools. If these and other schools don’t get their acts together, they could face what the NCAA calls “historical penalties,” which assesses major restrictions on a team and a program if their academic progress is not at an acceptable level. Cincinnati (1) and Iowa St. (2) are already losing scholarships this year for its transgressions under their former coaches who got away scot-free, which once again shows the hyprocisy of the NCAA (another topic for another time). It’s a good thing this measure didn’t exist during the Tarkanian days – does the APR score go as low as zero?
Posted by jstevrtc 
Rush the Court 
