Stomp The Lunatic

Well – you have to figure the LSU administration was under a lot of pressure – as they came out today announcing that based on the evidence in the Yahoo! Sports story on the FBI investigation and wiretaps, they have indefinitely suspended head coach Will Wade.

But before we get too far about lauding LSU for doing the right thing, lets remember this is all about illegal recruiting and paying players.  Will Wade has been at LSU for two years.  He has recruited 13 players to the Tigers – 2 of which were kicked off the team for disciplinary reasons, 2 of them have transferred, and the other 9 (including Javonte Smart – the believed recruit that was being discussed in the wiretap) are still playing on the #10 LSU Tigers.

If Will Wade truly paid a player – which it appears based on the wiretap that he did – then the player he paid is most likely still on the team – which means the Tigers are playing with an ineligible player.  LSU is suspending Wade because it looks like they are doing the right thing in the media.   But the right thing would not be simply suspending Wade – it would be suspending the team from post-season play.

If all of this is true, LSU is eventually going to be punished with a likely ban from the NCAA Tournament.  But if that happens at the speed of a normal NCAA investigation, that punishment won’t happen while the players who committed the infraction are there (since those are the players that some believe could make the Final Four with the right draw).  The players that will be punished will be the ones who are not even at the university yet – the ones who theoretically did nothing wrong (since it would be pretty gutsy for the university to continue to pay players to play while they are being investigated for it).

But the media is talking about how LSU did the right thing.  That was what they wanted everyone to believe – that way, they can still compete for a National Title while they have all this talent.  The right thing would have been to suspend the team – not just the coach.

Just figured I should mention as I came down pretty hard on Kansas yesterday – at a time when their fan base might be down.  So want to make several things clear by going on another ridiculously long rant that probably doesn’t clear anything up.

I actually have always liked Kansas, and I had a lot of respect for how amazing a coach both Roy Williams and Bill Self have been.  They always seem to be a title contender – which is amazing to be in the mix every year.  (By the way, not saying that Roy Williams is involved in any of this – just saying that Kansas has had amazing coaches).

It also might be that this player was involved with the Adidas runner because of another school, and somehow ended up changing his mind and going to Kansas.  There are lots of pieces of information that are unknown – and the only public information implicates the player, not the school.

It also might be that all the schools are guilty of this – everyone does it, and it just happens so far behind the scenes that the NCAA looks the other way.  I really hope this isn’t the case, but with all the stories you hear, it is hard not to believe that some of the players are being paid behind the scenes and that it is not isolated to 4-5 schools.

My problem with what Bill Self said is that the NCAA’s punishment was vindictive for what is a clear violation to the rules.  As a Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame basketball coach, he needs to be making statements about how we need a fair playing field and these players being paid by runners and agents is a major problem.  He could have said something like De Souza knows what he did was wrong and is really sorry for it, and considering past punishments for this type of violation, two years seems like too much.

But there is a difference between saying that a violation happened and the punishment doesn’t meet the crime, and saying that the NCAA is being vindictive to a player who didn’t commit a violation (despite a federal case sending people to jail for that non-violation).

If he believes the players should be paid, he should work behind the scenes with the NCAA to change the rules – I am sure a hall of fame coach would have some weight in that conversation if he approached it correctly.  But what is happening with the FBI investigation into college basketball recruiting is a big deal – saying the player did nothing wrong is a horrible message to send.

In the meantime, it came out in a Yahoo! Sports Exclusive today that LSU’s coach Will Wade is actually on the wire-tap talking to the runner who was sentenced to six months in federal prison discussing an offer about a current recruit and a future recruit.  Once again, this makes me sad because I like Wade – he was VCU’s coach for a couple seasons before heading to LSU.

But it shows why this is a problem.  LSU was 10-21 the season before hiring Wade.  And in only 2 years Wade helped LSU achieve the 17th and 4th best recruiting classes in the country according to 247Sports, and now are 24-5, tied for first place in the SEC and are the #10 team in the country.  Pretty amazing turnaround for a program.  That is amazing unless the program is paying these top recruits to come to LSU…..

Another problem is there is a difference between a Yahoo! sports article saying that the FBI has this evidence vs. the evidence has already been revealed in federal court.  The FBI has federal charges of bribery being tried in April where Wade and Arizona coach Sean Miller have been subpoenaed to testify.  Maybe during that trial, these wiretaps will be officially revealed.

If the report is correct, the NCAA should be ruling the LSU Tigers are immediately ineligible for the Tournament and Will Wade will no longer be able to coach in college basketball.  But I don’t know that the NCAA can act to suspend Wade for wrong-doing  and potentially impact whether the federal bribery case can get a fair trial (although I guess can they get a fair trial if Yahoo is reporting evidence that a potential jury pool can see).  Maybe LSU would step in and do the right thing and suspend Wade and the team.   I doubt that LSU will do that with the money that is potentially available from the tournament, but stranger things have happened.  While I hate to admit it, one of the comments that ex-Louisville coach Rick Pitino said rings true – the NCAA can take away our banners, but they can’t change what happened on the court – we won that National Championship.  Hard to do the right thing when winning is so important to everyone….

In a perfect world, the NCAA would send more of a message – while they might not have enough evidence to stop LSU from playing in this year’s tournament and due process is necessary for such a major claim of breaking the rules, they have enough probable cause to suspend Wade indefinitely until all the evidence plays out.  It will be interesting to see what happens.  And if that evidence is true, his coaching career should be done.  Sadly though, this case will probably drag out for a long time, and we all know NCAA investigations are anything but fast (I think the UNC academic scandal first came to light in 2011 and the investigation ended in 2017 with no punishment…)

Maybe Self is right – considering academic scandals don’t get a school punished, why should a player be suspended 2 years for taking money.  I just hate to think that is right – we have rules for a reason that should be followed.  But sadly, the NCAA simply isn’t very consistent with its rulings.

With any streak, it eventually has to end.  What the Kansas Jayhawks had done was incredible – and might never be matched again.  Kansas had won 14 straight Big 12 championships.

But last night as I was yelling at my computer about why I had all these scores of 0-0, I didn’t even realize that I could be watching history.  That is because the Kansas Jayhawks were on the road being upset by the Oklahoma Sooners (on the Sooners’ Senior Night).  The Jayhawks were always going to need help – as they were behind both Texas Tech and Kansas State going into the week.  But they are now 2 games back of both teams with everyone only having one game left to play.  There will be no regular season banner in Lawrence this year.

Kansas was supposed to be amazing this year – there have been multiple years where pundits would say this streak would finally end just to watch the Jayhawks chalk up another title.  This was not supposed to be one of those years – they were the preseason #1 team in the country.  Not just the #1 team in the Big 12 – the entire country.  But injuries and suspensions and a strange leave of absence have turned this title contender into simply a really good team which can be beat by other good teams with the right circumstances.  Oklahoma on Senior Night trying to get off the bubble certainly qualified.

That being said, I do have to rant – and the bad karma that has hit the Jayhawks gives me a reason to.  That is because the school’s reaction to sophomore Silvio De Souza’s further suspension is ridiculous.

For those who don’t know, Silvio De Souza because in October, it was revealed in federal court that Adidas consultant TJ Gassnola had paid De Souza’s guardian $2,500 – presumably as a payment to go to college at Kansas and eventually sign with Adidas.  And so, he has been sitting ever since – until February, when the NCAA ended the suspense and ruled him ineligible for the rest of this season and all of next season.  This situation prompted the following statement from Kansas head coach Bill Self.

“In my 30-plus years of coaching college basketball, I have never witnessed such a mean-spirited and vindictive punishment against a young man who did nothing wrong.  To take away his opportunity to play college basketball is shameful and a failure of the NCAA.”

So, to be fair – I know nothing about Silvio De Souza – maybe he is a great kid and simply an innocent pawn in the horrible dark side of college basketball that the NCAA would rather just have swept under the rug instead of be brought out into the headlines from time to time as the FBI successfully shows evidence of the corruption that happens to get top college basketball recruits.

But regardless of if this young man himself did nothing wrong, his guardian was paid money (and proven by the FBI) – the NCAA has to penalize him.  To be quite honest, considering how high profile the FBI case is, I am surprised he was given the chance to play a senior season if he sticks around.  In most of these cases, by the time the NCAA can identify the corruption, the player is already long gone to the NBA – and the only punishment that can be given is to the school.  Silvio De Souza is part of what might be the biggest scandal in NCAA athletics – and is still a student that can actually be declared ineligible.  The NCAA had to act – and act swiftly to try to show how stiff the penalty will be for this.

That being said, you have to wonder.  Kansas has been great for so long.  They have won 14 straight Big 12 championships as well as making it to 3 Final Fours during that span with a National Championship in 2008.  Every year, they have one of the best recruiting classes in basketball.  I would like to believe that is because they have had great coaches and top players like to go to successful programs.  But it is really hard to believe that De Souza was an isolated case that Kansas knew nothing about.

It is really unclear what other evidence is out there and how involved Kansas is in this – while it is hard to give them the benefit of the doubt, I do truly believe that the evidence needs to come out completely before any school can be dragged into this mess.  It appears as though the NCAA isn’t going to be allowed to truly investigate the schools on this until the FBI is done.  Who knows how much the FBI knows about the corruption of college basketball recruiting – and how much of that the NCAA already knows vs. will eventually be told.  But Bill Self’s statement – while might seem like he is standing up for his player – is totally out of line.  While the evidence in the federal court might not have fully led to Kansas, it clearly revealed that this particular student athlete’s family was paid and thus, he should be ineligible.

If Bill Self is going to come out and be righteous and make this type of declaration, I really hope that he is truly not involved in any of this corruption.  For if he is, he might actually find out what a mean-spirited and vindictive punishment  really is by the time the NCAA gets finished with him and the Kansas basketball program.

The Lunatic is sad.  Tuesday night was rough for him.  As many of you know, the Lunatic went to college at Purdue, and so you can imagine his excitement that the Boilermakers went into this week with a one game lead in the Big 10 standings.  If the Boilers won their two road games this week against Minnesota and Northwestern, they would be the outright Big 10 regular season champions.  Many might not realize this, but Purdue has already won 23 regular season championships – the most of any school in the Big 10.

I was mildly optimistic when the season started – knowing that we had Carson Edwards coming back.  But after starting the season 6-5 and losing big on the road to Michigan, it looked like the Boilers would simply be playing to try to get back into the NCAA tournament.  But Purdue went on to win 16 of their next 18 games – with only road losses to ranked Michigan State and Maryland to get into this great position.

Unfortunately, for the Lunatic, one of those two games they needed to win was a road game on Senior Night at Minnesota.  The Gophers came out strong, built a double digit lead, and the Boilers found themselves simply trying to catch up.  And they almost did.  With just 5 seconds left in the game, they had cut the lead all the way down to 2 points.  Then, the agony.

Minnesota tried to in-bound the ball with a lob pass, and Grady Eifert jumped in front of the intended receiver of the pass and almost stole it before the ball harmlessly fell out of bounds.  Since it was a close play (and the Minnesota player was also reaching for the ball before it went out of bounds), they went to review it.  As they reviewed it, you could hear the commentators say.  This is going to be Purdue’s ball – that looks like it might be the Minnesota’s player hand that tipped it.  But that is irrellevant, because you can see as the Gopher is stumbling towards the boundary, the ball barely hits his back, takes a bounce and then hits his leg as he is standing out of bounds.

I am all excited to see if the Boilers can hit a buzzer beater and send the game to overtime.  And then you hear the crowd erupt in applause.  The referees ruled that it was Minnesota’s ball!  I guess they felt it was Eifert’s hand that hit it, and there wasn’t enough evidence of the ball hitting the Minnesota player twice.  Maybe they thought that it was in their best interest if they ever wanted to leave Minnesota in one piece.  Who knows – Purdue had to foul, Minnesota hit two free throws, and the game was over – and so was any chance to win the title outright.

To be fair, Purdue did not lose because of that one call.  Carson Edwards went 7-31 – you can’t have your best player taking almost half of your shots and shooting 22.6% from the field – the Gophers shut him down.  Minnesota was in the lead most of the game – sometimes by double digits.  And there is no telling that if Purdue had got the ball that they would have made the last second basket.  If I was not a Purdue fan, I actually would have felt horrible if a bubble team on Senior Night had done all of that to earn a signature win that could push them into the tournament to surprisingly lose on a freaky buzzer beater after that type of play.  BUT I AM A PURDUE FAN – I WANTED TO SEE THAT FREAKY BUZZER BEATER!!!!!!

The Boilers still can up their total to 24 and win a share of the title by beating Northwestern (on the Wildcat’s Senior Night).  But there is no more room for error.  They are now tied both with Michigan and Michigan State with one game to play, and they play each other on Sunday – one of them has to win.

So, I thought to myself I might as well drown myself in basketball stats.  Lets get the box scores for my stats page that only the statisticians probably look at (if anyone does).  I pulled everything down, and was happy how fast it ran – only to find that something is wrong on the NCAA’s site and 70+ games had no box scores.  The link existed – but all the numbers were blank.  So, my code thinks the score of all of those games are 0-0.

Not sure what I am going to do about that – it would be too much effort to type in all the box scores for those games.  So, I have to hope that somewhere else on the NCAA site, I can find the data.  I think I have some options, but who knows.  Regardless – you can imagine that this did not improve my mood.

Last night was a sad night.  Fortunately, there is great medicine for that!!!!  March is here – and the conference tournaments are already starting!!!!  There is so much basketball to be watched to make the Lunatic happy again!!!!!!!

There is still two weeks until the Selection Sunday, but the Lunatic is already starting to get ready!!!!  The site is ready for the 2019 Stomp the Lunatic Tournament!!!!!!

Just a reminder that everyone needs to register again – the database does not remember your login from last year.  That being said, it is easier to wait until the brackets are announced – that way, when you register, it takes you immediately to your home page where you can enter brackets.

I will do my best to get the normal data out there.  The NCAA moving to the NET score will mean my checks might not be as accurate (I have no way of scoring their new score like I could validate the RPI score).  But the data will be there nonetheless.

So, start watching some of the games and get ready to find that awesome 12 seed that will pull the upsets that make us watch.  Good luck to everyone in Stomping the Lunatic!!!!

It might only be February!  But with the NFL over with, college basketball is starting to come to the front of the sports media.   And March will be here before we know it!!!!

And we all know what March brings – time to Stomp the Lunatic!!!!