Obviously, it’s Ekoj Asti. I hate those unpronounceable Eastern European names.
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I am agnostic on this. Just thinking of Wilner, who, according to Josh Newman, “wisely alluded” that if Utah didn’t hire Smith, someone else was going to, potentially another Pac-12 school."
But I’m just a fan. I have no idea. I don’t know.
He actually didn’t.
His name was rumored, he was supposed to interview but it never happened.
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Oregon Assistant Tony Stubblefield to become head coach at DePaul.
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I am still surprised ‘Zona doubled down on Miller. It’s my understanding the Feds aren’t fully done with “Varsity Blues” yet. If they find more, NAU might get the death penalty from the NCAA.
Seriously, if I was an AD who got raked by a HC’s misconduct, I would roll the fool. Wins and losses don’t matter that much.
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There is no way you can possibly know that no one else would have offered Smith, and Wilner, who actually gets paid for making such speculations his day job, disagrees with you. Apparently you’re also wrong about him interviewing with Minnesota.
Texaz Tech might have wanted him. A lot of dominos could fall with Roy Williams retirement.
Wilner’s point was that if the Utes didnt take him this year, another Pac 12 school could take him next year, when a number of jobs could open up.
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For both him and the University.
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I suspect you’re right, and it’s sickening to see how far college basketball has fallen.
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So someday we will seeing another 30 for 30 in the Pony Excess category?
NAU as in Northern Arizona? Or did you just mean Arizona. Honestly I haven’t been following all this stuff that closely.
The NCAA doesn’t punish P5 schools anymore. They punish the smaller schools for the P5’s indiscretions. 
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I remember years ago when John Thompson got in trouble for having ownership in a casino, some clever smartass sportswriter said that the NCAA was so mad at Georgetown that they were going to put Cleveland State on probation for 3 years.
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Lol honestly I wasn’t sure… I thought maybe you meant there was a NAU thing happening on the side. Hey they are an absolute powerhouse in Track & Field. Hoops, not so much…
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Texas Tech hired a USU football coach. No reason tho think they might not have considered their successful basketball coach.
Has anyone seen this article, published two days ago in the NYT?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/sports/ncaabasketball/ncaa-college-sports-laws.html
How Blowing Up College Sports Became a Rallying Cry for Some in Washington
The N.C.A.A. is under scrutiny on Capitol Hill and at the Supreme Court. The pressure for college sports to change is bound to intensify. The N.C.A.A. is embroiled in a crucial stretch of its long relationship with Washington.
By Alan Blinder
March 30, 2021
New York Times
Ramogi Huma, a former college football player, had been at a Justice Department lectern for eight seconds when he began an excoriation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
The governing body of college sports was, he declared, “a predatory economic cartel that treats players like university property rather than people.”
Huma had long used similar language as the leader of the National College Players Association, an advocacy group. But his 2019 speech to a roomful of antitrust experts at the Robert F. Kennedy Building signaled a shift in Washington. Less than a decade earlier, Huma recalled, federal law enforcement officials had told him that the capital’s political climate did not support action against the N.C.A.A. Now he was being invited to speak on Pennsylvania Avenue.
“More and more people find what the N.C.A.A. is doing is just patently unacceptable in terms of their treatment of athletes,” said Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, who played football at Stanford University and has championed a proposal that would compel colleges to share athletics profits with some players. The association, he added, was “not realizing the moral view of this has really grown or shifted.”
The N.C.A.A. is embroiled in perhaps the most crucial stretch of its long relationship with Washington, where top government officials have increasingly voiced doubts about the management and restrictions of college sports.
On Wednesday, the 115th anniversary of the N.C.A.A.’s founding under pressure from President Theodore Roosevelt, the Supreme Court will hear the association’s appeal in a case about caps on certain benefits for student-athletes. This summer, around the time the justices could announce their ruling, a Florida law is scheduled to take effect and allow players to profit off their fame, disrupting the uniform rules that have regulated college athletics for generations.
I’ve only posted about 20% of the article.
Also see…
Excerpt:
When Sedona Prince, a center on the University of Oregon women’s basketball team, shared a TikTok from the NCAA women’s basketball tournament earlier this month, it went viral. Her video compared the women’s weight room in San Antonio—a single small rack of dumbbells and a stack of yoga mats—with what the men’s teams were provided at their tournament, in Indianapolis: a gym-size room full of squat racks, benches, barbells, and racks of heavy plates. Soon after, players and coaches from several teams began posting their own photos on social media: a buffet of steak and shrimp for the men, prepackaged meals for the women. Swag bags full of celebratory gear blaring March Madness and The Big Dance for the men—what appeared to be a few standard-issue items without any reference to the tournament for the women.
After the firestorm of attention to the discrepancies, the NCAA apologized, provided the women with a proper weight room, defended the swag bags as equal in value, and said it had addressed the food situation. The NCAA’s president, Mark Emmert, told reporters: “I want to be really clear: This is not something that should have happened and, should we ever conduct a tournament like this again, will ever happen again.” Another official told the press that the NCAA had intended for the women to have access to a full weight room in the third round of the tournament. The men, for their part, have had access to one all along.
The gender inequality in college sports runs far deeper than a few social-media posts can reveal. As Cheryl Cooky, a professor studying sport sociology at Purdue University, told me in a recent phone conversation: “The problem is not the weight room itself, but what kind of groundwork has been laid that produced this moment where the weight-room controversy occurred. Nobody looked at that space and said, ‘Something’s not right here.’ It took someone posting on social media to bring attention to the issue.”
I think it’s fair to say, the NCAA is phony at best, and predatory at worst, at least when it comes to student-athletes. I think it is also fair to say that we all believe that the student portion of student-athlete should have more emphasis.
I am also pretty sure that NCAA is treated, by NBA and NFL as mostly minor leagues that they don’t have to support unlike MLB to a certain extent.
I don’t know that blowing the NCAA up is the correct action. Getting itself to reform itself may be a better route IMO. That all said, including the minor league bit, perhaps the NFL, NBA, and NCAA should take a page from MLB. Do treat the top level of college athletics as minor leagues, but have a draft like baseball does for high schoolers. If the high schooler does go to college, then that athlete stays there like they do in baseball, and become eligible for the draft again at a later date. I’m sure that I’m missing something about how MLB does it, but I think they have a decent plan on developing their players.
I’ll have to think more on how the NCAA can be reformed, this is just off the top of my head.
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Loyola coach Porter Moser to Oklahoma?
There are twitter reports that OU has made a big offer, and he is thinking about it.
Slocum and Peterson have been confirmed. Reports that he has also brought a guy as Dir. of Ops. So, one assistant and one Dir. of Player Personnel. My guess is that if Martinez or Jones were going to be hired that would have happened already. With the assistant position, it is possible that the guy they want has committed to stay where he is until after LOI signing day. I never liked this practice in football, but I know it happened particularly when the job opening was close to signing day.
Smith also stated that they have done individual workouts with guys the entire week. I would like to know which guys have been participating, but nobody asks that question.
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Norbert Thelissen in the portal.
We hardly knew you!