Tis the Season... (part II)

In Thursday's post I outlined the current scandal happening within the Auburn University football program, but they are far from the only university currently in the midst of controversy. The University of Rutgers basketball team has been in the news recently due to the egregious acts of their recently fired head coach, Mike Rice. Now that we've had some time to absorb the full scope of the situation, let's take a moment to examine it objectively.

Here's what we know: On Tuesday of last week, Outside the Lines aired video tapes showing coach Rice blatantly abusing several members of the Rutgers basketball team. The tapes shows Rice frequently shoving players in the back, kicking them in the behind, and throwing basketballs at them. The tapes also show Rice verbally abusing his players, using many expletives and homophobic slurs. According to the segment, then-AD Tim Pernetti was shown these videos back in December and chose to simply suspend the coach for three games and fine him $50,000. The videotapes were provided to the AD by then-director of basketball operations Eric Murdock, who was subsequently suspended and did not have his contract renewed by the school. He has since filed a lawsuit against the university, claiming that the school chose to suspend him and allow his contract to expire solely due to his concerns about coach Rice's treatment of the players. Murdock has since come under investigation by the FBI. They are investigating whether Murdock is attempting to extort the university, as the university claims that Murdock demanded nearly $1 million dollars from them to keep the videotape out of the public eye, and when they refused, he went to ESPN with the tapes.

It is clear in this situation that Rice absolutely deserved to lose his job. The behavior he exhibited on these tapes clearly warrants his termination as coach, and furthermore, almost certainly guarantees that he will never be the head coach of another major program. No AD will be able, or willing, to stick their head out for this guy, no matter how talented of a coach he may be, after seeing the things that we all saw in the OTL report. It is also clear that AD Tim Pernetti also deserved to lose his job. His decision to merely suspend and fine Rice after seeing the videotapes was, at best, a severe lapse of judgement. At worst, it was a half-hearted attempt to sweep everything under the rug and hope that he would be able to keep all of this from getting out in the public eye. Either way it is an offense worthy of his termination as well.

What is unknown at this time is what role that the university president, Robert Barchi, played in all of this. It has been reported that Barchi was shown the videotape in the same time frame as Pernetti. Barchi denies these reports and claims that he was unaware of the tape until recently and saw it for the first time last week. No matter when Barchi saw the tape, I don't think there is any way that he can come out of this situation with his job intact. If the reports are true and Barchi saw the tapes in December, he is just as culpable as Pernetti in the cover-up, perhaps more-so since he is the president of the university and the superior to Pernetti. If what Barchi says is true and he didn't see the tapes until just recently, that may be even more damning. That would mean that Barchi signed off on the suspension and fining of one of his employees without so much as asking a simple "Why?". If that is the case, that would give the NCAA an open door to come in and hand down sanctions to the university, claiming "a lack of institutional control", such as they did when the Penn State scandal occurred. Either scenario seems to spell the end for Barchi as president of Rutgers University and several faculty members have signed petitions to have him removed from the position.

Coaches have an obligation to get the most they can out of every single one of their players. It is there job to know what they need to do to motivate each player to achieve that goal. The tactics that Rice used were so far beyond what are acceptable motivational tactics that it's bordering on criminal. Several of his players have been so affected by coach Rice's torment that they have been forced to transfer out of Rutgers. Many of them have even been so traumatized that they are now receiving counseling to deal with what they have been through. Coach Rice's actions are nothing short of appalling. The choices that Pernetti made when presented with the situation are equally appalling, but the deceit or ignorance of Barchi just may be the most appalling of them all.

Mea Culpa...Sort Of.

When I woke up this morning, I fully intended to write this post apologizing to the Big Ten for underestimating them. I have been saying for awhile that the Big Ten was over-rated by many coming into this NCAA Tournament. To the conference's credit, they have only lost one game thus far and have four teams in the Sweet 16, with another three games yet to be played.

Seven teams in the Sweet 16 is impressive for any conference, but I'm not ready to say that I was wrong just yet. When you look at their games, Michigan had a tough test against a relatively unknown (to most anyway) South Dakota State team, lead by their phenomenal shooter Nate Wolters. Minnesota came up against a UCLA team who had lost their best player to a broken foot on the final play of their conference semifinal. Indiana was a number one seed, so they were all but guaranteed to advance. Illinois played a tough game against a good Colorado team, so I will give them some credit there. I was not expecting that win, as Colorado had a better RPI and conference record, and I was wrong there. Ohio State was a second seed, which should be an automatic though it hasn't been in recent years. That being said, I don't think they deserve much credit for beating Iona. Wisconsin DID lose their match against an Ole Miss team that was one of the last teams to make it into the tournament. Michigan State is a tough team led by an all-time great coach in Tom Izzo, and no one should be surprised any time they make a run in the NCAA tournament.

Indiana and Ohio State won their games today to advance to the Sweet 16, but both of them should have lost. To their credit, they didn't, but both of them should have. In the case of Indiana, it took a gutty performance from their star player Victor Oladipo in the final minutes of the game to overcome a Temple team who just looked better than them today. Indiana had no answer for Khalif Wyatt, who went for 31 points for the second consecutive game. In the case of Ohio State, I did not see the game myself, but from everything I've heard and read, they had help from the refs. There were many moving screens by the Buckeyes that were not called (no surprise, Iowa State never gets the benefit of the doubt in these situations), and there was a blown call down at the end. All this, and Ohio State still needed a three pointer with 0.02 seconds left to grab victory from the jaws of defeat.

We'll have to see what the outcomes of the Kansas/UNC, Minnesota/Florida, and Illinois/Miami games are, and I may change my stance, especially if Illinois is able to pull off the upset over Miami. But so far, statistically speaking I was wrong, but if you actually look at the games, I really don't think so.