Terry
Holland has pulled out of the hunt at Minnesota, saying that "Although the visit to Minnesota certainly made a positive impression on me and it is a great opportunity for a
basketball coach, I remain committed to the projects that are already under way to ensure the future of
U.Va. athletic programs."
Minnesota is still determined
to make a run at Dave Odom, who has not expressed much interest, Dan Monson
from Gonzaga, Willie Wilson from Rice, and Jim Crews.
In other Midwestern scandal-related news, Robert Traylor and Louis Bullock
are spilling their guts to the feds about Ed Martin. This is an unusual
case in that subpoena powers are involved (which the NCAA lacks), and Michigan
may find a lot of dirty laundry aired. The feds have accused Martin of being
part of a gambling ring - the players aren't suspected of throwing games - and
have confiscated
Martin's property, thus continuing the terrible 80's and 90's practice of
stealing property without even a trial. According to a prosecutor, "only to establish probable cause
that the seized goods are part of an illegaloperation before the burden shifts to the owner to prove that the money or goods are not connected
with a criminal activity."
Geez, and we thought innocent until proven guilty was the law of the land. Silly
us. It sounds like the Feds are building a case, but it'd be nice if the
Constitution had some meaning left beyond mere campaign posturing.
And in one other piece of really interesting news, the NCAA is now, finally,
taking Bob Knight's old suggestion of tying scholarships to graduation rates.
This is a very healthy move which will scare the hell out of some people This
article says it runs from Duke's 83% to Cincinnati's 0%. (Duke is tied
for second in overall gradutation rates, by the way). fIn fairness, though,
that's not entirely accurate, as a) the Bearcats recruit a lot of jucos and they
don't count in the 4 year formula, and b) transfers out, or early entries for
that matter, count against the success rate. Those factors should probably
be accounted for, but basically it's a step in the right direction. Thus,
schools like LSU, which has a low graduation rate, would be seriously pressured
to step it up.
The logical cheating route, of course, would be to ensure that kids graduate
regardless of whether they actually pass or not. It'lll be
interesting to see how that's enforced.