Scandals overshadow joy as NCAA prepares to celebrate Final Four
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The NCAA tournament, celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, is desperately hoping to get to this weekend’s Final Four before another scandal breaks.
The odds right now in Las Vegas, where the Pac-12 Conference recently held its postseason championship, stand at about 50-50.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday have been public relations disaster days for a control-freak NCAA that micromanages the tournament down to the kind of drinking cups (NCAA logo only) that can be carried to press row.
Three events spread out over three days have undermined the soft, piano music backdrop the NCAA so carefully crafts for the Final Four.
Feel-good stories like Wichita State and the broken-leg recovery of Louisville guard Kevin Ware have been overshadowed by shame and embarrassment.
1. Mike Rice and Rutgers. This is administration incompetence at its worst. Athletic director Tim Perenitti sat for months on videotape that showed his basketball coach hurling basketballs and homophobic slurs at players. Pernetti thought a three-game suspension in December would make it go away?
Wrong. Only after ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” revealed the tapes this week did the school wilt to overwhelming pressure and fire Rice.
It’s also interesting that ESPN is the same network that employs basketball analyst Bob Knight, the godfather of tough love who was fired at Indiana for his “outside the lines” behavior.
This appears to be an inside job at Rutgers and all that’s left now is to see how many more officials fall. The “shocked” school president said he didn’t see the tapes until this week. The AD says the president knew months ago of the incidents.
Someone is not coming clean.
The website ajerseyguy.com nominated Rutgers grad James Gandolfini of “The Sopranos” fame to take over as AD. After all, wasn’t Gandolfini’s TV character in the “waste management” business?
2. The Pac-12 and Ed Rush. Larry Scott has enjoyed a near-flawless reign as commissioner but he botched this one. CBS Sports reported Monday that Rush, the league’s coordinator of officials, put out a bounty on Arizona basketball Coach Sean Miller at the Pac-12 Tournament. Rush offered officials $5,000 or a trip to Cancun if they ejected Miller from the game. The Pac-12 conducted an investigation and concluded Rush was joking.
Even if true, Rush’s comments wer