Off-Season Report Card: Can Premier Programs Clean Up Their Acts?

May 9th, 2012 - 22:48

Mid-major colleges aren't exempt from problems but occasionally a fondness for mid-level schools escalates to fascination because you're simply fed up with the seemingly endless quibbling and pettiness engulfing major universities. Isn't it about time for the NCAA to implement meaningful academic requirements and drug-testing policies?

There is no cure-all, but the best way to drain the swamp is to place more emphasis on authentic student-athletes and steer clear of many of the AAU wonders with their posses. Wouldn't you like to know the average ACT and/or SAT score for the exhaustive list of troublemakers cited by CollegeHoopedia.com as the "Bad Boys of Basketball"?

Regrettably, this is an era of phony majors and the soft bigotry of low expectations. In a pimp-with-a-limp era, premium players only take the classes the athletic department wants them to take for GPA purposes.

And when a legitimate class is taken, even the Ivy League isn't exempt from the sense of entitlement. Kyle Casey, the leading scorer for Harvard's first NCAA playoff team in 62 years and first-ever Ivy League titlist, plus fellow co-captain Brandyn Curry, an all-conference second-team selection, were expected to miss this season amid an academic cheating scandal involving nearly half of the 279 students enrolled in a government course.

As far as we know, it's not the fault of a low-budget film one of Harvard's most famous alums is fond of focusing on. Even leaving the stench of AAU abnormalities out of the equation, it's almost as if no one showers when you take in totality the following distasteful episodes among so-called elite institutions:

  • Venue-obsessed Kentucky, perhaps dismayed that none of its vital players would be around long enough to perform in both on-campus facilities, took its ball and went home and won't continue a stimulating series with Indiana because the Hoosiers have the unmitigated gall to seek to continue playing the game in their own arena every other year. IU won't be on the docket, but UK raised ticket prices and required donations for some priority seating despite an unattractive powderpuff nonconference slate featuring Eastern Michigan, Lafayette, Lipscomb, Long Island, Morehead State, Portland and Samford. The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, boasting faculty members from 59 schools, condemned UK's refusal to compete on IU's campus, requesting potential opponents refuse to play the Wildcats at neutral sites. But Baylor didn't get the memo from the watchdog group. Meanwhile, former UK guards Richie Farmer and Michael Porter were immersed in salacious controversies.

  • Kansas' freshman class was littered with marginal academic credentials but the Jayhawks' program was bright enough to get immersed in a spitting contest with natural rival Missouri, ending its longstanding series with the Tigers. In mid-summer, a federal prosecutor accused a member of an alleged massive drug ring based in Olathe, Kan., of recently selling marijuana to members of KU's team. It's difficult to digest, but the pot dealer's iPhone was seized with text messages to his clients and he reportedly was seen at Kansas City's Sprint Center sitting behind the Jayhawks' bench with a number of their Self-centered players. The nonsense almost makes KU long for its recent ticket scandal.

  • Missouri's new mentor Frank Haith became national coach of the year in the aftermath of a suspect association with a Ponzi scheme booster at his previous outpost - Miami (FL). Haith then inherited a local stereo shop owner hanger-on indicted among more than a dozen people from central Missouri facing federal drug conspiracy charges for cocaine distribution. The booster, who received complimentary tickets from Mizzou players and regularly traveled with the squad to NCAA playoff games (including under Haith predecessor Mike Anderson), was arrested at the Tigers' team hotel in Omaha hours before they were upset by Norfolk State. Parcing "is is" words like Bill Clinton, Mizzou officials took pains to point out the too-close-for-comfort supporter "is not a donor or season ticket holder" and wouldn't describe his contact with players as "close." It was also a "close call" for Mizzou to keep quiet a late-summer sexual assault charge against Big 12 Conference Sixth Man of the Year Michael Dixon before hiding behind a "violation of team rules" suspension prior to him announcing a transfer.

  • No one was murdered this time around, but Baylor was killing its recruits with kindness displaying an addiction to social media. And what a surprise when an AAU-affiliated coach who worked for the Bears' coaching staff wound up becoming the agent for one of their players declaring early for the NBA draft. Meanwhile, a former player was arrested and subsequently sentenced to 18 months in prison for attempting to extort $1 million from QB/Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III (RG3). Baylor and Kentucky ranked 1-2 in balloting conducted by CBS Sports, combining for 70% of the vote by DI coaches, as the perceived biggest cheaters in the sport.

  • Texas Tech was engulfed in a player mutiny stemming from coach Billy Gillispie's alleged mistreatment of them including violations of NCAA practice-length guidelines. Based on the Red Raiders' paltry 8-23 record in Gillispie's initial season with them last year, they needed to practice 24/7. But by the time we absorb more facts as Gillispie departed for medical reasons, we'll all probably need to take some sick days or tour of the Mayo Clinic. Tech A.D. Kirby Hocutt served in a similar capacity at Miami (FL) when a felon (booster Nevin Shapiro) seemed to run the athletic department while immersed in all sorts of shenanigans.

  • UConn's conniving while attempting to circumvent the APR (Academic Progress Rate) stunk like a skunk. The Huskies' conference looked like the Big Least with its petty machinations involving ACC defectors Pittsburgh and Syracuse in connection with scheduling for the Big East-SEC Challenge.

  • Cincinnati couldn't even wait for a one-year anniversary to celebrate its nasty fisticuffs with Xavier. Wouldn't you know that an end-of-the-bench player, not a regular, was axed from UC's roster stemming from an investigation regarding a downtown nightclub melee with a bouncer when UC players reportedly wouldn't leave a (Cat)woman's VIP section? Bearcats coach Mick Cronin was reprimanded by the NCAA during the summer because of his poor language after a playoff loss against Ohio State. The distractions apparently prevented Cronin from assembling a respectable non-league schedule, fostering salty remarks from season-ticketholders who will be forced to watch Campbell, UMES, MVSU, North Carolina A&T, UTM and UALR.

  • Many forgiving fans and pundits looking the other way resembling JoePa were annoyed about Louisville's coach not becoming a HOF nominee while seemingly forgetting it wasn't all that long ago he couldn't control his dessert craving at a local diner. Restaurant & Food Service Inspection personnel in Louisville should be placed on alert if the Cardinals put the municipality in a sensuous mood by living up to their preseason billing as the nation's premier program.

  • Marquette dismissed an assistant coach and head coach Buzz Williams was slated to serve a one-game suspension as part of the school's self-imposed sanctions stemming from recruiting rules violations it reported to the NCAA. There was no word whether Williams will be forced to take dance lessons for his late-season victory waltz to John Denver's "Country Roads" at West Virginia. Six Golden Eagle players had been ticketed in mid-season for being underage in a downtown Milwaukee nightclub. The previous year, the U.S. Department of Education reviewed how Marquette handled two cases of alleged sexual assault involving athletes amid reports a district attorney couldn't have law enforcement adequately probe the cases because the school's public safety department didn't tell authorities about the allegations.

  • Maryland looked somewhat undignified seeking a waiver from the NCAA for transfer Dez Wells to be immediately eligible after he was expelled from Xavier. Did UM already have or start a "Truth or Dare" major in order to attract Wells?

  • Is it too much to ask athletes to get out of bed and attend the same courses as the remainder of the student body rather than bogus no-show classes? North Carolina's preferred path to a higher education included a peculiar emphasis on African & Afro-American Studies and intermediate Swahili to satisfy foreign language requirement. According to academic support, the "guys are in this class for a reason." The preseason #1-ranked Tar Heels must have been studying too hard for that rigorous coursework when they were humiliated at Florida State by 33 points. Carolina has had a penchant for clustering players in a mischievous major - seven scholars from UNC's 2005 NCAA titlist graduated with degrees in African & Afro-American Studies (whatever that demanding curriculum might be). The good news thus far is that "The Carolina Way" apparently doesn't include having players exposed to the school's lurid physics professor. More naughty news surfaced when the mother of four-time All-American Tyler Hansbrough was placed on leave and subsequently resigned from her $95,000/year UNC fundraising job as part of a travel discrepancies probe. Three Rivers Community College in their hometown of Poplar Bluff, Mo., apparently didn't have the resources to capitalize on her assets. Ditto for Mississippi State and Notre Dame, where her other All-American son (Ben) played and who she made special arrangements to go see. Rather than work directly for Carolina, couldn't she at least have placed applications with nearby Duke boosters who previously hired the parents of Blue Devil standouts such as Carlos Boozer and Chris Duhon to see if they would have offered her a similar hefty salary? There's no word yet as to whether Tyler needed to take Afro Studies and/or Swahili to help the Tar Heels keep their grade-point-average up. He did, however, endure a suspect Naval Weapons Systems class; perhaps as a precaution in case UNC opposed the Midshipmen in a non-league game.

  • Why in the world did Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski permit mystery man William Wesley (a/k/a "World Wide" Wes) to hang around the U.S. Olympic team? With the stench of AAU payments to 1999 Final Four standout Corey Maggette lingering, it appears as if Coach K should be concerned with supplying some of his championship team players with world-class accounting lessons. Forward Lance Thomas, a starter on Duke's 2010 NCAA titlist, was sued by a deluxe New York-based jeweler for not paying the balance ($67,800) of what he owed after purchasing nearly $100,000 in custom merchandise midway through that season. What percentage of college seniors can make a $30,000 down payment on such bling? Surely, Coach K has the clout to simply sit Thomas down and ask integrity-preserving questions discerning what in the world went on. Shouldn't Duke be more concerned about restoring the integrity of its 2010 NCAA championship banner rather than banning Chick-fil-A? But Thomas, who should have meandered down the highway and asked Hansbrough's mom for a loan, isn't the only former Blue Devil title team member facing debt collectors. His predicament pales in comparison to Christian Laettner and Brian Davis, teammates on Duke's back-to-back titlists in 1991 and 1992, who are immersed in huge financial and legal hurdles stemming from a loan their real estate company failed to repay of nearly $700,000 to former Duke captain/assistant coach and current Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins. A $170 million project in Durham ran into difficulty as Laettner and Davis owed millions to creditors although an investment firm recently threw a lifeline to the financially-strapped developers by making a $5 million capital investment in the second phase of West Village. Court documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal indicated that Laettner and Davis were defendants in several civil lawsuits seeking repayment of about $30 million.

  • Desperate for some semblance of success, South Carolina frankly believes staring and bulging veins will propel it to an NCAA playoff victory for the first time since 1973. The Gamecocks apparently didn't notice how much of a flop highly-ranked Kansas State was just a couple of years ago under coach Frank Martin.

  • Mississippi State, in the aftermath of the departure of embattled Renardo Sidney, dismissed guard Shaun Smith and forward Kristers Zeidaks for "repeated violations of team rules."

  • Tennessee's former "Bruce-on-the-loose" coach exhibited a pearl of wisdom by forgetting what his residence looked like inside. This was the same self-promoter who, while a recruiter for Big Ten Conference rival Iowa in the late 1980s, was so detail-oriented he recorded a telephone conversation with celebrated Chicago prep prospect Deon Thomas that triggered putting Illinois on NCAA probation although Thomas went on to become the Illini's all-time scoring leader.

  • Memphis, although the Tigers' program with young gun Josh Pastner at the helm is a far cry from the Final Four-caliber exhibited under coaching predecessor John Calipari, is "crying" about scheduling nonconference games against SEC regional rivals Arkansas, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Tennessee.

  • The FBI poked around Auburn investigating potential point shaving. Investigators should also check to see if Charles Barkley ever took a golf instruction, gambling statistics or women's apparel class.

  • Jim Boeheim, earning about $2 million annually after receiving a 33 1/3 percent salary increase in a depressed economy, finally can afford a cleaning agent to scrub his glasses. He claimed a former ball boy wasn't in his longtime assistant's hotel room on the road and also seemed as if he either didn't read or just ignored Syracuse's drug-testing policies. With such lenient drug enforcement, the Orange should be joining the SEC rather than the ACC. Meanwhile, a salacious story will go on interminably after the wife of his former long-time assistant sued ESPN for libel. Her attorney, resembling George Stephanopoulos defending Bill Clinton against Gennifer Flowers' answering machine tapes, said a recording of his client was doctored. He also said the audio was selectively edited, reported out of context and did not definitely contain her voice. The legal beagle might need to request a donation from Boeheim for ear treatment. Meanwhile, the former ball boy's lawyer said a recent report by a special committee into the university's 2005 probe of her client's claim is "a complete whitewash." She called on New York's state attorney general to investigate whether Syracuse was in compliance with the Clery Act, a federal law requiring colleges participating in federal financial aid programs to disclose information about crime on campus.

  • UCLA's me-generation roster devoid of any tradition traits honored John Wooden's passing by almost leaving the Bruins in ruins via a series of unsavory incidents and classless demeanor. Dismissed forward Reeves Nelson, taking to wallet Wooden's word about "failure to act is often the biggest failure of all," sued SI for $10 million, citing defamation, false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress over an article depicting him as a "psychotic bully" and central figure regarding turmoil in the Bruins' program. A Los Angeles judge subsequently dismissed the suit, finding that the SI reporter had numerous sources to back up the facts in his story. UCLA was supposed to turn a corner with its regal recruiting class but NCAA investigators were still poking around at the start of school.

  • O.J. Mayo apparently wasn't the lone USC player dealing under the table in 2007-08. A central figure in a corruption scandal at the Los Angeles County assessor's office said he gave more than $3,700 cash to Mayo's fellow one-and-done teammate Davon Jefferson.

  • Michigan State's leadership is suspect after its lone senior returnee was fined and ordered to perform community service for an impaired driving case. A marijuana possession charge was dropped.

  • Minnesota's Trevor Mbakwe, the Big Ten Conference's leading rebounder in 2010-11, was arrested for driving while intoxicated and was sentenced to one year of probation and community service. The incident re-opened a felony assault case in Florida but he avoided jail time. Assistant Saul Smith, a son of head coach Tubby Smith and former player for him with Kentucky, was placed on unpaid administrative leave following an arrest at 2:20 a.m. for suspicion of DUI after being stopped for speeding and driving on the shoulder of the highway.

  • Northwestern's chances of reaching the NCAA playoffs for the first time suffered a blow when guard JerShon Cobb was suspended for the entire season because of a violation of undisclosed team rules. Cobb averaged 16 during the Wildcats' final four games last year.

  • Indiana, while pursuing an eighth-grader for future glory, overbooked on scholarships as if Hoosiers can't count to 13. Did Branch McCracken or Bob Knight grovel before junior highers?

  • More than 70 different active head coaches had at least three years remaining on their contracts when they departed for greener pastures but Wisconsin and other schools lectured peons from the top of Mount Ignorant about how transfer players should be treated (like indentured servants).

When it appears that snooty schools are about to implode like a North Korean rocket, it almost makes an observer want to take a vow to always root for mid-majors in matchups with the big boys if the elite schools have the cojones to oppose them in the first place. For instance, West Virginia is paving the way to get out of its entertaining Capital Classic matchup with Marshall.

If Colgate could finally defeat Syracuse, it might set the stage for giving the Orange and its arrogant brethren a generous dose of humility. It's an off-season fantasy, but we can hope for the following "David" successes until the Goliaths come to their senses and restore some dignity: