It has been a rough week for college basketball.
First, the geniuses at St. Bonaventure decided not to play in their last two regular season games after an Atlantic 10 Conference ruling stripped the Bonnies of six regular season victories and a spot in the A-10 Tournament for using an ineligible player.
Jamil Terrell received a welding certificate rather than an associate’s degree from his junior college and therefore was ruled ineligible.
According to St. Bonaventure, the decision to not play Massachsetts and Dayton was solely made by the players, not the coaching staff or university.
If I were the president of that university, I would strip those basketball players of their scholarships for breach of contract.
The fact is a basketball player receives a full scholarship to a university to try his hardest in both the academic arena and the athletic arena. Obviously a coach cannot force a player to go on the court, but if that is the case, an athlete should not be receiving a full scholarship.
It was bad judgment on the part of St. Bonaventure’s administration to not at least try and field a team for those two games, even if it required going to the Rec Center and rounding up five guys who would be more than willing to represent their school on the basketball court.
Next, there is the less serious violation of 12 members of Villanova’s basketball team who obtained an athletic department employee’s secret telephone access number and ran up long distance charges on it.
Each player involved was suspended, with punishments ranging from three to eight game suspensions over an extended period of time.
Even though this violation is minor compared to the decision of the St. Bonaventure’s basketball players, common sense must be used more in athletes decisions.
Finally, LSU’s Southeastern Conference brethren Georgia found itself in an interesting predicament that already contains a sad twist.
Baton Rouge native Tony Cole, a former player under Jim Harrick at Georgia, is currently involved with some problems with the law. He is also involved in some problems with the Georgia basketball program. Cole accused Harrick and his son, then assistant coach Jim Harrick Jr., of paying several of Cole’s bills, doing his schoolwork and giving Cole an A in a class Harrick Jr. taught, but Cole never attended.
Harrick Jr. was suspended and told he would not be re-signed. After an investigation by the school, Harrick Sr. also was suspended but with pay.
Unfortunately the Harricks are not the people truly affected.
In what appears to be an effort to avoid future sanctions, Georgia decided the Bulldogs will not participate in the SEC or NCAA Tournaments.
Where does this leave current Georgia players who have done nothing wrong?
From what it looks like, that doesn’t really matter to the administration. I mean why would the administration not try to hire an interim coach who could lead the rest of the team into the two tournaments?
The leaders of the school were the ones who hired Harrick, a coach who had problems at UCLA and Rhode Island with academic fraud before he came to UGA, and it seems to me, they made another big mistake: punishing the players who did nothing wrong.
Hopefully next week will be better for college basketball.