Grambling State Coach resigns; Lawsuit on the horizon?

Grambling State men’s basketball coach Rick Duckett will resign, the school announced Friday, nearly a month after one of his players died following a supervised conditioning session.

Henry White, 21, became ill at a preseason session on Aug. 14 and died on Aug. 26 at a hospital in Shreveport, La. The university and an attorney for White’s family both say they are investigating, according to reports in the Monroe News Star and the Ruston Daily Leader.

White, a prep standout in Milwaukee, transferred to Grambling for the 2009-10 season from Hill Junior College in Texas.

Duckett has been placed on administrative leave through Oct. 31, when his employment officially ends, the university said, according to the reports.

Earlier this week, WISN-TV in Milwaukee, White’s hometown, reported White’s family claims the players were made to run in 104-degree heat without water.

“We start from a position that it’s very troubling that the university was running these athletes at 2 p.m. in August in Louisiana,” said Larry English, a Shreveport-based attorney representing the family, according to the News Star.

Duckett, a former assistant to Dave Odom at South Carolina and head coach at Division II Fayetteville and Winston-Salem State, was 6-23 overall and 4-14 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference in his one season at Grambling.

Article located here.

NCAA: Memphis required to vacate wins and placed on probation

The NCAA Committee on Infractions will release its findings regarding Memphis on Thursday morning and the word “vacate” is included in the report, several sources told ESPN.com.

In May, the NCAA accused Memphis of several major infractions during its 2007-08 season under coach John Calipari, including a fraudulent SAT score by a player, later revealed to be Derrick Rose, and more than $2,000 in free travel for Rose’s brother, Reggie.

The potential penalties include vacating the Tigers’ Final Four run and NCAA-record 38-win season, a possibility that seems likely now, according to the sources.

Late Wednesday night, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, citing an unnamed source, said the school will have to vacate the regular-season wins and its 2008 Final Four appearance.

A source said the current Memphis program will not be penalized and will escape a postseason ban or loss of scholarships.

The NCAA planned a news conference in Indianapolis at 3 p.m. ET Thursday, and Dr. Shirley Raines, president of Memphis, told The Associated Press the school will hold its own media conference shortly afterward.

Memphis originally received the notice of allegations on Jan. 16 and appeared before the committee in June. The main academic allegation against Rose is that someone stood in for him during the SAT, even though the NCAA Eligibility Center later cleared Rose to play.

Calipari, Memphis’ coach at the time of the alleged infractions who is now the head coach of Kentucky, told ESPN.com’s Andy Katz on Wednesday that he wasn’t aware the report would be released Thursday.

Calipari, appearing at the Kentucky State Fair on Thursday, had no comment because the report had not been officially released, but did say he would be “disappointed” if Memphis was stripped of its trip to the Final Four.

“We don’t know anything, because I’m not going to comment because I have to wait on the finding,” Calipari said. “I would be disappointed if that’s what they chose to do.”

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, appearing with Calipari on Thursday, said he isn’t concerned about the troubles at Memphis following Calipari to the Wildcats.

“I’m not worried about it because they have never said Coach Cal did anything wrong at all,” Beshear said. “I think he’s a very upstanding guy. I think that’s his reputation and I think that reputation will be with him here. I really don’t foresee any problems.”

Article continued here.

My thoughts: I’ve always thought Coach Calipari was dirty, and it appears that the NCAA is about tell us again that he is. He has now taken 2 teams to the Final Four (UMass and Memphis) and both have gotten stripped from the record books (if this report is true).  This just stinks to high heaven, and you figure that the University would do a better job of following the rules, but we all know this goes on at many major universities, especially ones with good sports programs. I hope Kentucky knows what they’ve gotten into because they just hired a coach who has now been stripped of wins in both places he coached prior to taking over their program and signing a very lucrative contract.

UPDATE: Memphis was required to vacate all 38 wins from the 07-08 season and was placed on 3 years’ probation as a result of their violations. In addition to the lost season, Memphis also must return the money it received from the NCAA tournament to Conference USA and will be prevented from receiving future shares doled out in the conference’s revenue-sharing program — a total loss estimated at $530,000 on top of the $85,000 already paid by the school. If Memphis loses its appeal, Johnson said approximately $300,000 in bonus money Calipari earned from that season would be paid back.

Paul Dee, the chairman for the COI, said in a teleconference that even though Memphis was not aware of Rose’s questionable test score until midway through his freshman year, once the score was invalidated by Educational Testing Service, Rose no longer met the initial eligibility standards.

“This is a situation of strict liability,” Dee said. “If he is ineligible and does not meet initial requirements, the penalties are related back to that time and a determination is then made: Did he play in any contests after the fact? In this case, he did.”

Article continued here.

Six ex-Toledo players charged with point shaving

University of Toledo officials have known for two years the bad news was coming. It finally struck Wednesday when six former players — three each from Toledo’s basketball and football programs, as well as two Detroit-area businessmen — were charged with conspiracy to commit sports bribery in an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

The 20-count indictment charges that between December 2004 and December 2006, Ghazi “Gary” Manni, 52, and Mitchell Karam, 76, paid money and other things of value to the athletes in order to influence, or attempt to influence, the final score of both football and basketball games. Though the money paid players was at times as little as $500, this is believed to be the first major gambling case involving two sports on a college campus.

Nothing in the indictment, however, details Manni and Karam placing wagers on football games. Instead, the indictment lists 17 specific games in which they placed bets on Toledo basketball contests, including the amounts wagered. The indictment also details 133 phone calls between Manni and those charged in the case.

Charged in the indictment, in addition to Manni and Karam, were Harvey “Scooter” McDougle Jr., 24, a former running back from Cleveland; Adam Cuomo, 31, a former running back from Hagersville, Ontario, Canada; Quinton Broussard, 25, a former running back from Carrollton, Texas; Keith Triplett, 29, a former basketball player from Toledo; Anton Currie, 25, a former basketball player from Okemos, Mich; and Kashif Payne, 24, a former basketball player from Chester, Pa.

“Today’s charges shine a light into the dark corner of illegal sports bookmaking and reveals the unfortunate consequences that the influence of money from betting can have on the integrity of both athletes and athletic contests,” said U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg in announcing the indictment.

Article located here.

NCAA makes NBA Draft window shorter

College basketball players who declare early for the NBA draft will still get to work out for teams.

They’ll just have to do everything much sooner next season.

On Thursday, the NCAA’s board of directors approved a measure requiring players to withdraw from the draft by May 8 instead of the current June 15, a move that was supported by several key constituencies for different reasons.

College coaches wanted the change to give them additional time to restructure their teams. School presidents were concerned about potentially serious academic ramifications, and one NBA official thinks the extra time isn’t entirely necessary anyway.

“Honestly, if a kid doesn’t know where his stock is by that time, he needs to go back to school,” Denver Nuggets vice president of player personnel Rex Chapman said.

This change creates some unique challenges for compliance, too.

The NBA’s collective bargaining agreement requires the list of players pulling out of the draft to be released in mid-June. That won’t change until the league reaches a new CBA with the players association after the 2010-11 season.

But if a player decides to pull out of the draft, Division I vice president David Berst said he must still notify the NCAA by May 8. The legislation does not establish how it will be done.

“Rest assured it will be communicated,” Berst said during a conference call. “The manner by which it is communicated still has to be determined. They’ll have to opt out of the draft to our satisfaction and that remains to be interpreted to some degree.”

Berst said the NBA is assisting with the change.

The league agreed to move up the date for individual workouts from early June to April 30, giving college players a little more than a week to improve their draft stock. The workout dates are not part of the CBA.

Rest of article here.

New FIU Coach Isiah Thomas to donate first year salary to FIU Athletics

Here’s a sign of how badly Isiah Thomas wanted to return to coaching: He’s working for free at Florida International.

At his introductory news conference at FIU on Wednesday, Thomas said his salary the first year from the Golden Panthers will be donated back to the school’s athletic department.

Thomas was fired by the New York Knicks last year. The team still owes him around $12 million for the final two years of his deal there.

FIU athletic director Pete Garcia said that when Thomas learned about layoffs and budget cuts, he told the university president that the school should keep his salary.

Thomas arrived outside FIU’s basketball arena at 10:25 a.m. Wednesday, riding passenger in a sleek black Mercedes. Even before he could get out of the car, three well-wishers couldn’t wait to greet him.

“Hey! There he is!” shouted one of the men, all of whom got handshakes from Thomas before the car pulled into a parking space.

Thomas said he took the FIU job because he enjoys challenges. He said he talked to Bob Knight, his former coach at Indiana, and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, about what it took to build college programs.

“I like rolling up my sleeves. I like taking some from the bottom and building it to the top. There’s a lot of risk in that and there is also a lot of reward in that. But that’s how I grew up. I want to take FIU to the next level and I know it’s going to take a lot of hard work, but I’m willing to pay the price to do that.”

His arrival was celebrated in Miami, much in the way his departure was in New York.

During his time with the Knicks, Thomas endured legal and personal troubles off the court, and more losses than wins on it. His Knicks were 23-59 a season ago, prompting a firing many fans had long awaited. The Knicks never won a playoff game in his tenure as president or coach, and many of his moves — like acquiring Stephon Marbury — didn’t work out as planned.

Rest of the article here.

UConn Basketball in potential hot water

Connecticut allegedly committed NCAA rules violations in its recruitment of former guard Nate Miles, Yahoo! Sports reported Wednesday.

The Web site reported that, according to multiple sources, Miles, a 6-foot-7 guard from Toledo, Ohio, was provided with lodging, transportation, restaurant meals and representation between 2006 and 2008 by Josh Nochimson, a former UConn student manager who had become a professional sports agent who once represented ex-Huskies star Richard Hamilton. Miles was expelled in fall 2008 and never played for UConn.

Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said he and the university are looking into a Yahoo! Sports report, but added Miles is not at UConn and his team remains focused on the NCAA tournament.

According to the report, one of UConn’s assistant coaches knew about the relationship between Nochimson and Miles as early as fall 2006, and that phone records show UConn coaches made thousands of phone calls and text messages to Nochimson during the next two years.

Miles could not be reached for comment. A cell phone number used by The Associated Press to contact him in the past was answered Wednesday by his uncle, Thomas Pettigrew of Toledo, Ohio, who said the NCAA needs to do more to prevent recruiting violations.

“I just think he got mixed up with the wrong people,” Pettigrew said. “There was a whole bunch of adults who should have been doing their job instead of doing what they did.

“That’s how society is. They chew you up and spit you out. If they can use you, they use you. I think he whole situation is funny, because I’m sure there are people who are supposed to be looking over that.”

Pettigrew added, “No matter what anybody says about him, my nephew is a great basketball player and a good person.”

Link to Article: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=4014188