Indiana Atheltic Director Rick Greenspan will resign at the end of the calendar year. The NCAA has basically said he didn’t do his job in administering the athletic department he oversaw. I’m glad to see that Kelvin Sampson won’t be the only fall guy in this case.

In my opinion the NCAA has wasted its time going after some extra phone calls. How about all of the money that changes hands? How about the Final Four ticket scam that the NCAA takes part in? Time to move on and start from scratch.

Groce Hired at Ohio U
Ohio State Asst. John Groce was announced as the new head coach at Ohio University. Let me start off by saying that I am sure John Groce is a good coach and a good guy, at least from my experience.

But new Athletic Director Jim Schaus made a huge mistake in his first official decision at Ohio. He had the best candidate sitting two doors down. Associate Head Coach John Rhodes was the perfect fit for the job, but for some inexplicable reason, Schaus thought that Groce was the better fit. Neither has head coaching experience, but let me give you a little of Rhodes background and let you make your own decision.

Rhodes was ranked as one of the top assistant coaches in the country by Fox Sports and Hoop Scoop. He recruited last year’s conference player of the year and this year’s preseason player of the year. He has served for nine years under two different head coaches. During that time he went to the NCAA tournament twice (once with each head coach).

Rhodes is an alum who had the total support of the Bobcat community. He played on an NCAA tourney team at Ohio and is one of their most beloved players. To throw in a little more ammunition, he served on the St. Bonaventure staff that went to the NCAA tournament the last time the Bonnies were there.

If there is any assistant who deserved a chance at a job at his alma mater, it is John Rhodes. Unfortunately, Jim Schaus who spent the last decade at Wichita State, failed to understand that he had the right man under his nose. Too often, ADs try to win the press conference. At least that is the only way that I can explain why they would take an Ohio State assistant. Little does he realize that most people at OU don’t want to hear about the Buckeyes. Finally, I don’t think this hire is going to help Schaus on the fund raising trail when he tries to explain why he didn’t hire one of their own. Especially one of their own that has tasted such success.

I will make a prediction right now… Schaus’ stay at Ohio U will be short lived and this decision will come back to haunt him.

It is crazy that search firms are being used to hire athletic directors. It is absolutely nuts that search firms are being used to hire coaches. But it is outrageously absurd that new Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins used a search firm to hire his coaching staff.

Why are college administrators allowed to waste money on search firms to do the job they are hired to do. And come on, Coach Dawkins, if you don’t know 5 people well enough who you think could be good assistants you have no business being a head coach. It is not like you were hiring someone to coach at NJIT for a cup of coffee. You were hiring a staff for Stanford with an unlimited budget. What’s next? Hire a search firm to decide what type of defense and offense to run.

Two former Duquesne basketball players are looking to hit the lotteryKojo Mensah and Shawn James left school a year early to put their names in the NBA draft. Seems they were poorly advised by their mentors back in Brooklyn. Neither player will be drafted this week. Now they want to earn the same type of money by suing the school that gave them an opportunity to get a college degree. Another bad idea by their mentors back in Brooklyn. Two wrongs don’t make a right…

In other Court news: Kansas guard Sheron Collins was charged with assault on a woman that stems from an incident that occurred in May 2007. That’s the correct date. I guess the wheels of justice run slow in Kansas.

The NABC has come out against the recruitment of 8th graders in college basketball. The coaches association has said this is not a good thing. What will Tim Floyd and John Calipari do now? Also, how about the recruiting services who rank kids as low as the 5th grade? Like they really know how good a player is going to be 10 years from now.

Unfortunately, this is only a suggestion from the NABC and not a rule. Why not make it a rule and put some teeth in it? Then the public will take the organization more serious. Come on Jim Haney, make it a rule….

In another bizarre coaching move, Tim O’Shea has left Ohio University to become the head coach at Bryant University in Rhode Island. On the surface, it’s strange that a coach would leave a solid mid-major job for a school that will be playing their first year in Division I.

However, when you look closely you will see a couple of good reasons to make the move. First, he would have had a new boss at Ohio University. Jim Schaus was hired as the new athletic director a couple of months ago, which isn’t a good thing for a coach who only has a couple of years left on his contract. Also, he is a New England guy who has a home in Newport News, Rhode Island.

With O’Shea’s departure, Schaus should just walk over to the office right next door and hire Associate Head Coach, John Rhodes.

Rhodes is a former OU player who has been an assistant for both O’Shea and Larry Hunter. He has played in the NCAA tournament and coached in them while working for the Bobcats. He is one of the top recruiters in the country and an excellent teacher of the game. The current players and people in the community would rally around such a choice. But most importantly, he would produce championship teams both on and off the court.

Here’s hoping Schaus makes the right decision.

It appears that North Carolina and Arizona are the two big winners in the early draft sweepstakes. With the rule change allowing players to test the waters and have the NBA teams pay for the workouts, more and more players are sticking their foot in the waters hoping to make a splash. This rule change really leaves the college coaches in a bit of a pickle. Do you sign his replacement or do you hope he comes to his senses? Now there are some sure bets, like Michael Beasley and Derrick Rose. I am not talking about those guys, but a player like Bill Walker from Kansas State or the three players from UNC who tested the waters. Those are the “flip a coin” type guys.

However, before you shed a tear for Roy Williams remember he still has Tyler Hansbrough back for another year. Today Roy Williams can go back out on the golf course for another month with the knowledge that Ty Lawson, Danny Green and Wayne Ellington will be back in Chapel Hill. Coaching just got a little bit easier for ol’ Roy. He has another year with more talent than anyone he plays against.

The other big winner is Lute Olsen. With the return of Chase Buddinger and Jordan Hill (and if Brandon Jennings can make grades) the Wildcats will be in the hunt out west again. And it looks like all his distractions are gone (marital problems and staff issues) and that magic 800 mark is in sight.

The big losers are UCLA and Kansas State. Both Bill Walker and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute will stay in. With Walker’s new knee injury and Moute’s lack of polish both players would have been better served to come back one more year. Then again they will make big money overseas even if the NBA doesn’t come calling.

Also, George Hill of IUPUI and Paul Graham of Florida Atlantic are staying in. The thought is their value may never be any higher. At least in Hill’s case he is close to graduating so he will have something to fall back on.

Once again, it begs the question of who are some of these guys listening too? Oh, that’s right, they listen to an advisor who only gets paid if they leave school. Let’s see, I will be Bill Walker’s advisor for the moment. If I tell Bill to go back to school I get nothing, however, if I tell him to come out, then I get paid a percentage of what his first contract is. So I get nothing or 10% to 20%? Pretty easy decision. Come on guys, listen to the people who know – not someone you think knows.

Once again the NCAA has shown why it cares more about the turf it holds as a giant bureaucracy than the welfare of one of its student athletes. They have lost touch with the people who make their jobs possible. The young men and women who want to compete.

In a recent ruling, Kenny Simms was denied a waiver to transfer and play at Francis Marion University. I guess the schools involved weren’t big enough to warrant any publicity, good or bad, to make a decision in what was in the best interest of the student athlete. Not like a year ago, when they approved Tyler Smith to play right away for Tennessee, which was a school he had turned down the first time they recruited him.

All Kenny Sims wanted to do was play for a coach that recruited him, but the ARS committee refused his request based on the grounds that he could have appealed to stay at UMKC. It seems UMKC had withdrawn his scholarship at the end of the academic year.

Let me get back to the beginning so you hear the whole story. Kenny was recruited out of high school by Donnie Marsh at FIU. He elected to sign there in the fall of his senior year in high school. Unfortunately for Kenny, Coach Marsh was fired that spring. Since he had signed the letter of intent he was bound to FIU. He ended up going there and playing for the new coach. After a year, his scholarship was not renewed. No reasons were given. A school doesn’t have to give a reason. It was just a case of the new coach wanting his own players.

He then transferred to UMKC. While sitting out a year in residence (as required by the NCAA) the coach that recruited him there was fired. Once again he was playing for a new coach. At the end of that year the new coach decided not to renew his scholarship.

Now Kenny wanted to finish his career playing for someone he knows and, more importantly, going to a school that would give him a scholarship. You see, he had no financial resources to stay and pay his own way at UMKC the additional year so that he could graduate.

Unfortunately, this week he was told by Matt Bergmeister of the NCAA that he would not be granted his waiver and would not be allowed to play. When explaining this decision, Bergmeister cited two things. First, it didn’t matter that coaches had changed. What world does he live in? Oh yeah, the fantasy world of the NCAA!
Secondly, that he could have appealed his scholarship non-renewal at UMKC. He is correct about that, but by the time the committee would have met and ruled he would have risked not having another school to go to.

Once again, the NCAA has taken away a young man’s future by taking away his economic wherewithal to graduate. It is time for the NCAA to stop burying its head in the sand and do what is right for the student athletes.

One final note, if there are any lawyers out there reading this blog who would be interested in trying to fight this injustice please contact me.

It’s official, Kyle Taber will be the captain of the basketball team at Indiana. Well, not quite official. Although, with the news of Jordan Crawford’s departure, Taber is the only scholarship player left on the roster.

Tom Crean’s recruiting ability will be tested to the max the next two years. The question is – can he pull another Dwayne Wade out of his hat? With only one returning scholarship player, Crean will have to use newcomers and his coaching wits to avoid the basement in the Big Ten.

My money is on Crean. If I had to use one word to describe him, it would be “relentless.”

A report surfaced today that a high school coach whose player was involved with the investigation into Kelvin Sampson’s illegal phone calls has sent in his phone records to refute the charge. The phone records show that the call was made from the high school coaches phone and not an Indiana assistant (which would have made it illegal).

That knocks it down to 9 phone calls in question. Are you kidding me? The NCAA is off it’s rocker spending so much money to invesitgate this matter. That is why Jerry Tarkanian received $22.5 million dollars from the NCAA for their abusive investigations of him at UNLV.

Sampson has moved on to the NBA. The AD still has his job and Tom Crean is rebuilding from scratch. Let’s give it a rest and worry about something more important.

BROWN HIRES AGEL
Assistant Jessie Agel has been hired as the head coach at Brown. After Craig Robinson was hired at Oregon State (not sure why), his assistant was left to hand in the wind for close to three months. Finally, they did the right thing and hired a guy who has paid his dues. After a stellar run as an assistant at Vermont, he was bypassed for that job and landed on his feet at Brown.

Glad to see him get an opportunity. Go Bears!!

LAWSON ARRESTED FOR DUI
Ty Lawson was arrested for DUI and underage drinking in Chapel Hill over the weekend. Must have been partying with Tyler Hansbrough. I wonder who can jump the farthest out a window.

He was supposed to work out for the Denver Nuggets on Sunday. Obviously, he missed it. Lucky for him George Karl is an ex-UNC player so he probably knows a little bit about the partying going on in Chapel Hill. Do you think they will still take him with their 20th pick as was rumored? Why not, he is a perfect fit with Iverson and Anthony. Both on and off the court!

My only question is why didn’t he wait until after the draft?

Florida Atlantic announced this week that Mike Jarvis will be their new basketball coach. This is the same Mike Jarvis whose St. John’s program deteriorated to the bottom of the Big East. The same Coach Jarvis whose program was put on NCAA probation for paying players. The same Coach Jarvis whose George Washington program detriorated in his last copuple of years to the bottom of the Atlantic 10.

Not that I don’t believe in second chances, but give me a break. Once again college administrators have proven that if you have a successful record on the court (Jarvis did have good seasons early in his tenure at both schools) then what happens off the court doesn’t matter. After a two-year stint working with Athletes in Action (Christian organization), his image has been rehabilitated. But come on! Isn’t it time that college presidents walk the walk?

Until these college presidents stop hiring coaches who have broken serious NCAA rules, the whole system will remain a sham. Remember the president of Georgia when he hired Jim Harrick after his rules violations at UCLA? He extolled how Harrick had learned his lessons. Obviously, he didn’t learn them well enough because he was part of the biggest scandal in Georgia basketball history.

Now I am not saying that Jarvis has not learned his lessons or doesn’t deserve another chance, but there are too many coaches out there with proven integrity who should be given the same chance. However, there is one thing that Jarvis has proven and that is he can win games. And that is all that matters to most college administrators!

Crazy Coaching Move, Part 2: Kansas State announced today that they have signed Associate Head coach Dalonte Hill to a five-year contract worth $420,000 per year. Are you kidding me? That’s more money than what 90% of the head coaches make in Division I. And for what? He delivered Michael Beasley. The one-year wonder who helped Kansas State make the NCAA tournament, where they won a single game.

His salary is more than the the combined salary of the entire assistant staff at Kansas. And they won a National Championship. And they have reloaded with NBA talent. Meanwhile, K-State is left without a single potential NBA player on their roster or incoming recruit with any buzz of a NBA future. Couple that with an irresponsible DUI charge during the season and it makes you wonder what the new Athletic Director at K-State was thinking. That type of money should be left for proven coaches who are the whole package. For a great cost comparison check out the article by Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star.