The NCAA Tournament, as presented by CBS and Turner TV, in three acts:
Act I: No ado about something
Thursday night on CBS, as West Virginia’s 6-foot-7 Jonathan Holton was at the foul line, Marv Albert spoke a thumbnail: Holton’s from Miami, a transfer from the University of Rhode Island.
Well, yeah … but, as is so often the reality in big-time, full scholarship, televised athletics, there’s so much more.
West Virginia lists Holton as a junior. It also gives his birth day, but not the year he was born. Given that three years ago he was the 20-year-old freshman star at Rhode Island, he is a 23-year-old junior, which makes him a rather senior junior.
In March 2012, Holton at URI, was arrested three times over three days.
He was arrested for secretly recording then distributing video of separate sexual encounters with two female students. As police looked closer, he was arrested for stealing the laptop of a URI student. As police looked even closer, he was arrested as a fugitive for a probation violation stemming from a strong-armed robbery in Florida.
URI, which apparently had no idea why a 20-year-old star freshman from Miami would be available in the first place, expelled Holton. Darn!
No matter, Holton returned to Florida to face the music — plea bargain probation, again — and to play basketball for a community college.
And, because nothing matters, Holton remained a hot property. That he wound up playing for Bob Huggins at West Virginia — both synonymous with the trafficking of athletes who have no other business being in any college — put rhyme to the reason.
While enrolled at West Virginia, he traveled back to Rhode Island, where he pleaded no contest to felony voyeurism, a sex crime, and was given probation. Then it was back to basketball at West Virginia!
The Associated Press reported the bottom line when Holton signed with West Virginia: “A prototype Big 12 forward who should give the Mountaineers immediate help on the front line.”
And that’s how Jonathan Holton, 6-foot-7 forward from Miami and a transfer from Rhode Island, got to the foul line for West Virginia on Thursday night on CBS.
Act 2: Love’s Labour’s Lost
If common decency were not kryptonite to super powers, Dr. Eli Capilouto, president of the University of Kentucky, would have had John Calipari on the phone and/or carpet the night of March 19.
With Kentucky up 30-to-35 points over 16-seed Hampton deep into the second half, Calipari didn’t give his subs a shot until two entered with two minutes left, four others with a minute left.
“Our student-athletes deserve better,” Dr. Capilouto would have told him. “They worked hard for you and UK basketball all season. I was embarrassed by what you did to them.”
Apparently no such call was made, no such sentiment expressed, because Thursday, as UK was beating the adjectives and adverbs out of West Virginia, 78-39, Calipari kept four kids, conspicuously seated side-by-side in their blue warm-ups, on the end of the bench.
Finally, confident that the lead was safe, Calipari put them in … with 38 bleepin’ seconds left!
Kentucky was able to hold on to win by 39.
If I were those kids, two of them seniors, I would have told Coach Cal to shove it. Let’s see ESPN put that in its Top 10 Plays! Calipari played four kids 38 seconds at the end of a slaughter!
With 3:20 left, Kentucky up 38, CBS analyst Chris Webber — no paragon of basketball virtue — began to openly and righteously wonder why Calipari had not already begun to honor some of his and UK’s sweat and toil kids.
Why, Webber asked aloud, would Calipari not play “the practice guys, the walk-ons, the guys who help this team be so good?” Damned good question.
Co-analyst Len Elmore disappointed. He ducked, choosing to compliment Coach Cal’s regular troops for still playing so hard with a huge lead. Yeah, we noticed. The circumstances were too revolting to miss.
What a national champ, this Coach Cal, a man for our times. Thursday he did it again. He humiliated four of his players, made them stand out as unworthy, beneath his concern and attention. He made them stand out as losers on an undefeated team.
Act 3: Some by virtue fall
Don’t know how many New Jersey taxpayers who watched Rutgers’ women lose to UConn on Monday night on ESPN2 realized their own dilemma. If they were rooting for Rutgers, they should cheer up. The silver lining is lined with silver. For now.
Had Rutgers won, coach C. Vivian Stringer would be due a bonus, as per her contract with the state university, for reaching the Sweet 16. Bonus? How much? Are you sitting down? Lying down?
Half a million bucks, $500,000.
Yep, that’s in Stringer’s new, four-year deal that pays her a base of roughly $800,000, bonus clauses added. Hey, this past season Rutgers paid an assistant football coach $500,000. Athletic director Julie Hermann, at a $450,000 base plus a $12,000 car stipend, recently was rewarded a $30,000 bonus.
Though it is easy to compile the short- and long-term benefits of a state university invested in the higher education of its residents and all academic comers, at Rutgers, as at too many colleges, there’s a critical shortage of money to spend on education. Yet, tens of millions are made available to spend on basketball and football.
What benefits are bestowed on a society when schools put their greatest emphasis on winning basketball and football games? Got me. Sure, root for your school! But at what price? Where’s the line?
In Stringer’s case, Rutgers seems to fuel excessive entitlement, a common find among overly indulged Division I college coaches. While a national news media that knew nothing about her ways and means crowned her Queen of All Things Good as blind response to the 2007 WFAN/MSNBC Don Imus racial episode, well, not quite.
For example, Stringer recruited 6-foot-3 Shalicia Hurns, who had been kicked out of two previous colleges — drugs, a hit-and-run, chronic disregard for rules. Employing Division I college math, Stringer explained that Hurns deserved “a second chance.”
Well, Hurns was expelled from Rutgers after she was arrested for beating, kidnapping and holding a knife to her roommate, an Rutgers student.
While Imus made a public apology to Stringer and Rutgers — and was fired — Stringer was defiant about her decision to give Hurns a third second chance. “I don’t apologize for anything,” she told USA Today.
Anyway, Jersey taxpayers, maybe that $500K bonus will be hers next season. While fools and their money are soon parted, sometimes it takes a while.