STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Measuring success in college basketball comes today and all this month. If teams make the field of 68, it’s an easy indicator to see that they’re at least headed down the right path, inching closer to cutting down the net while One Shining Moment plays overhead, this time culminating on April 2 in San Antonio.
It’s an exhilarating month for college hoops, with the inevitable Cinderella getting closer to the ball while some mighty No. 1 seed will come crashing down to send your bracket up in smoke. You don’t remember any of that talk about the college basketball scandal now, do you?
March makes us all forget about the dirty side of this game, and really any college sport where athletes are viewed as commodities, helping to boost a program’s attendance and bring in money and fame in exchange for a free education and a platform to get to the next level. The cycle continues this and every year and like always, we all tune in to watch as our brackets bust. I’m right there with you.
With likely no regional teams making the tournament -- yes, I don’t see Penn State’s three wins against Ohio State helping to get the team into their first NCAA Tournament since 2011, so hello, NIT – it will be another year of watching everyone else have all the fun. And there’s plenty of fun to be had with this field of 68 that will be announced tonight at 6 during the usual announcement show on TBS.
There’s Villanova, poised to make another run all the way, which would be the program’s second such title in three years. Can you imagine Philadelphia with another Nova win and still riding high after the Super Bowl? That would be a sight.
The University of Virginia, which collected all 65 first-place votes in this past week’s AP Poll, could be the team to storm right through your bracket much like it did against Pitt last month. Hey, if you’re filling out a bracket, then for those few minutes at least, you won’t be thinking about the changing state of the program, right?
Michigan dropped Michigan State to take the Big Ten tournament for the second year in a row and can you imagine if the Spartans win it all? Seriously, that could be a mess.
Tom Izzo directed his team to only answer basketball questions on March 1, not because of the magnitude of the games, but because of the federal investigation surrounding corruption in college basketball that his program has been linked to. Michigan State’s football and basketball programs, per an ESPN report, allegedly helped suppress claims of sexual assault or violence against women. While those are claims and not facts, still how would we all respond if they cut down the net?
While all of this seems to be coming to a head this year, it’s nothing new. Every college sport has its flaws, and as this unfolds, it looks like NCAA basketball might just be one of the worst for corruption. But still, we’ll watch and scribble out our brackets because it’s March and that’s what we’ve always done, too.
• I was unaware Kobe Bryant won an Oscar until he was on stage accepting it and I was squinting at my TV to make sure it was him. So now I’ll have to add the animated short ‘Dear Basketball’ to my list and yet in the name of what will likely be a bad sports movie I will tune in next month to watch HBO’s Paterno film. I have no idea why, since I lived it and already watched documentaries about the scandal that were drastically different than what I lived, but Al Pacino as Paterno? Count me in for watching that on April 7.
• One of the most important reads of the week came from Kevin Love in the Players’ Tribune titled 'Everyone is going through something.' I can’t recommend it enough because of the topic covered. Love wrote about his own panic attack, which happened during a game this past November, and how that forced him to confront issues he’s faced for years, owning up to the reality that mental health is just as important as his physical health. The piece was shared all over social media this week and was a great example of an athlete using his platform to shed light on an issue that’s far from new, but one that sports still needs to do a better job confronting.
It still amazes me that teams of all ages and at all levels will dump endless resources into physical health, nutritionists, sleep specialists, chefs, an edge here and an edge there, yet Love had a panic attack in the middle of a game and had absolutely no idea what was happening to him. That’s terrifying. Mental health has to factor into the equation here more than it does and kudos to Love for sharing, because with his opening up, others will too.
• We’ll find out within the next week if Penn State wrestling can bring home another NCAA title. At 38 years old Cael Sanderson’s resume – just as a coach – is insanely impressive. He’s produced 58 All-America honorees in 11 years and coached 18 NCAA champions, 14 of which were from his time at Penn State, where he’s in his ninth season. Penn State heads to Cleveland later this week eyeing their seventh NCAA title in eight years. It doesn’t get more remarkable than that.
• Pitt football's recruiting department was having a little fun with their promotional materials that they’re sending to prospects, including a fake ESPN the Magazine cover. It wasn’t anything overly creative in the grand scheme of recruiting mailings, but the price on this fake magazine was listed at 42.39, also known as the score of the Pitt-PSU game two years ago. Now, I get that it’s a subtle jab for Narduzzi to take, but is there any way to look more like little brother than by touting a victory from two years ago that hasn’t transformed your program?
It’s strange to me -- and again, as I've written before, I'm 28 so I wasn't alive in the heat of the rivalry -- that Pitt is so obsessed with Penn State. Yet, when Penn State isn’t willing to extend the series, Pitt takes it as a slight. Recruiting is a weird business, but man, push the program's actual big-time upsets of then No. 2 Clemson and No. 2 Miami. That'll mean more to recruits -- who also like me don't have the history of this series -- than a win against Penn State.
• LSU’s Derrius Guice claims he was asked about sexuality during interviews at last week’s NFL Scouting Combine. While Guice didn’t name the team or teams, we shouldn’t be surprised that an NFL prospect was asked a ridiculous question that was so far out of bounds during interviews at the NFL Scouting Combine because this seemingly happens every year.
Remember when cornerback Eli Apple said the Falcons asked him in 2016 if he liked men? Remember Dez Bryant’s claim that a team asked if his mom was a prostitute? Seems very relevant to the job, right?
Teams will pay these NFL prospects millions of dollars and trust these athletes with their jobs, but come on. Let’s then not let the NFL preach about all their inclusive efforts when teams are still employing people who think these questions are OK and somehow need to be asked.
What happens in a few years then when a highly-touted Arizona defensive end—once an openly gay recruit who opted to play for Arizona instead of UCLA – sits down for NFL interviews should he make it that far? It’ll be the Michael Sam experience all over again where we'll see if the league as a whole has gotten any better.
Maybe teammates are more open than those in the meeting room which is why this ridiculous cycle of questioning will continue because there’s no way Guice reveals the team that asked him ahead of the draft and risks losing money because of it.
So, what if the NFL takes action – and because these teams and their employees are under their jurisdiction per the collective bargaining agreement they certainly could -- and has the offending team or teams forfeit draft picks? That might change things since the league has yet to do anything about it.
• Will it be to Pitt’s benefit to tread through their basketball coaching search slowly? The benefit to that would be that someone like Sean Miller – again a longshot in my opinion – could emerge, but then it would also mean Pitt would be behind on recruiting efforts, which is why making a timely hire is so critical. Getting it right is always the goal, but does that mean waiting until the end of the NCAA Tournament or making a move within the next week or two? There are risks either way, but if I’m Pitt, I make a move sooner rather than later because recruiting can’t be neglected any longer and that’s ultimately how programs get turned around.