Today’s not-so-savory news comes to us courtesy of the case of The Drowsy Chaperone:

A year ago, the Toledo Rockets were thrust into the most unfortunate of spotlights, when former football player Scooter McDougle was implicated in a point-shaving scandal.

But, as everyone knows thanks to the Tarkanian years at UNLV, point-shaving is the preferred method of cheating on the hardwood, not the gridiron. Which made it practically no surprise at all when the U.S. Attorney’s continued investigation of point-shaving at U of T led them to former Rockets guard Sammy Villegas, who was formally charged in Detroit yesterday.

But the prosecutor’s bill of information seems to, well, get its information wrong. The feds claim that Villegas’ intentionally missed two free throws to fix a game against Central Michigan on February 4, 2006. But when Villegas missed those free throws, Toledo had already covered the published spread. So, unless there is something going on here that we don’t understand – and, since we don’t gamble on sports, we admit that the universe of shit we don’t know here is HUGE – we’re not quite sure how that game represents any kind of smoking gun against Villegas.

The bigger indictment against him (hardy har har legal wordz) might be the rapid decline in his play cited by The (Toledo) Blade – Villegas was the MAC Freshman of the Year in 2003, but his play deteriorated so quickly that his coach publicly wondered what happened (registration required for link).

We’ll let the U.S. Attorney do his own investigation, but … and we can’t be the only ones wondering this … doesn’t the federal prosecutor for Detroit, named only last year as the most vulnerable point of illegal entry into the U.S., have bigger fish to fry than a two-bit guard in a Mid-American Conference RICO scheme?

(HT: It’s MAC news, so you knew it had to be Chuck.)

Thanksgiving in Maui – perfect.

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
Key Preseason Tournaments Announce Matchups

If the NFL preseason has taught us anything – unlikely at best, but roll with us for a minute – it is that “meaning” does not guarantee priority viewing. Preseaon NFL games may be both meaningless and poor in quality, but they’re still more entertaining to watch than Game #120 in the MLB season. (And, jeez, we actually like baseball.)

But that dirty secret is a double-edged sword, and it cuts football harshly around Thanksgiving. As anyone who has suffered through watching the Lions with a belly full of tryptophan should admit, the best sports on television during the Week of the Bird has nothing to do with a pigskin. Nay, it is the exempt preseason college hoops tournaments – they of the meaningless games and odd locales – that take the cake. And the pie. And whatever other deliciousness is left in the Thanksgiving cornucopia of metaphor.

The WWL released the schedules for three of this season’s premier exempt tourneys, and each features a few can’t miss early season matchups:

In Maui – Trendy pick Notre Dame faces off against Tom Crean’s Indiana(ish) squad, but undisputed preseason #1 North Carolina leads the field and will face host Chaminade in their first game. Given the air of infallibility surrounding this UNC team, pardon us if we cheer for the Silverswords to … ya know, pull a Chaminade.

In Anaheim – In its second year, tWWL’s own tournament might be labeled the Up-and-Coming Classic. Wake Forest, coming off a Top 10 recruiting class, will face the defending Big West champs and hosts Cal State Fullerton. The winner takes on a field consisting of former bottom-dwellers like Baylor and Arizona State, punched up with solid mid-majors like Saint Mary’s and Charlotte.

In Orlando – Also owned by tWWL but with two years of history, the Old Spice Classic pulls in an impressive field of solid teams from last year with major question marks. Tennessee post-Chris Lofton? Georgetown post-Roy Hibbert? Siena trying to become the new Gonzaga? Gonzaga trying to do better than … ya know, Gonzaga? This is literally anyone’s tournament. All we know is that Neil Patrick Harris better be there.

Three more headlines, including a lot more travel for teams and coaches, after the jump

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Parrish: “I Don’t Really Love Sports Anymore”

If you’re anything like us, there was one great mystery left unsolved in CBS’ decision to let Billy Packer go out to pasture – how on earth were they going to hold onto the dour curmudgeon demographic? Sure, the 18-24 kids are the advertiser’s wet dream, but a network like CBS can’t ignore its base of tapioca slurpers, can it? Without Packer, where were these viewers going to get the “darn kids these days” coverage they crave?

We should have known the network brass were smarter than us. Just like their ad revenue, CBS is simply moving their crass, disinterested reporting online, in the form of Gary Parrish. From an Q&A with 35S favorite A Sea of Blue:

I mean, sitting courtside at this years [sic] national title game [as a life-long Memphis fan] should’ve been one of the highlights of my life. But it wasn’t. I was indifferent to the whole thing, and I don’t say that in an attempt to prove I’m impartial. It kinda makes me sad, actually, because the main reason I wanted to be a sports writer was because I loved sports, and I don’t really love sports anymore.

Bravo, CBS. Bra-f’in-vo. Somewhere in LA, Bill Simmons is mouthing “I told you so”. Gary, put on some Eddie Vedder and let the indifference set in.

Three more headlines, including some Grade A fan gouging, after the jump:

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Three coaching hires / rehires as the Human Resources Department portion of the offseason winds to a close:

First, Sean Woods will take over at Mississippi Valley State, leaving his assistant position at TCU. (LaDainian Tomlinson now owes Jerry Rice a dollar.) With Woods and former UK teammate John Pelphrey (now at Arkansas) heading Division I programs and fellow Wildcat Richie Farmer moving up the ranks in Kentucky state politics, the 1991-1992 Kentucky “Unforgettables” are living up to their name, as RTC notes.

Well, mostly – Deron Feldhaus, the fourth “Unforgettable”, is the pro and co-owner at a nine-hole golf course on the Ohio border. NTTIAWWT, of course, since nine-hole courses keep our scores in double digits and our brains on this side of sanity.

This reads ’bout right.

Second, Ohio University AD Jim Schaus (who, again, was Pete Carroll-level jacked to conduct his first major coaching search) appears to have found his man, as Goodman’s sources have Ohio State assistant John Croce pegged as the Bobcats’ new head coach. Jim, if you thought this was exciting, just wait until you get to replace Frank Solich. Roofie endurance tests for everyone!

Finally, Davidson makes the obvious move by re-signing coach Bob McKillop to a long-term deal. McKillop, like George Mason’s Jim Larranaga before him, would be the subject of every coaching search from sagging BCS schools and would-be near majors for the foreseeable future. Locking McKillop into Davidson for the long-term – which, by all accounts, was McKillop’s sincere wish – offers fans the chance in five years to be just as sick of Davidson as we are of Gonzaga now. Hooray overexposure!

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Sadly, the biggest – and, for the most part, only – story in college basketball today is actually a story about pro basketball:

How old school are we? 2006 old school, that’s how we do.

The draft is melancholy for us. On one hand, we will watch any draft of any sport because we are … how do you put this … addicts. There is something intensely interesting about watching the future unfold, not to mention that we, like Bill Simmons’ and his dad, roundly enjoy reviewing the suits each year. Plus, if you can’t enjoy watching Stephen A. Smith interview someone who doesn’t speak English – well, brother, we just don’t know what to tell you.

(Oddly, we now have a taste for cheez doodles. Which are delicious.)

On the other hand, however, the draft is where we bid a fond farewell to college players we enjoyed because … well, we just don’t give a damn about the NBA. We’ve tried, and we just can’t. It’s not because we think the quality of play is poor; we don’t think that’s true in the slightest (at least, not anymore). It’s not that we don’t find the games entertaining, or that we have a problem with the NBA “culture”. It’s that we have no blood on that field; we have no stake in what happens at that level.

We grew up as Cleveland Cavaliers fans, which was fun during the glory years with Mark Price and Brad Daugherty. (See, Carolina fans? We can let grudges go.) But then Daugherty got hurt and starting caring more about racing than playing. Price got traded. The Cavs acquired Shawn Kemp (and future negotiation rights with all 329 of his children), who promptly got fat and terrible. The team sucked. And then the 1998 lockout happened.

Even as college kids, there was only so much time we had to devote to following sports – there were things called “Goldeneye”, “beer” and “trim” to which we wanted to devote our attention. And at that time, with our team in shambles and the league thumbing its nose at its fans – well, we just couldn’t care anymore.

We’ve tried to go back to it – it’s not like we’re unaware that the Cavs have the best basketball player alive right now – but any devotion we may have had to our team is gone. As Simmons put it – like him or hate him, he sometimes finds a nut – when you cheer for a team these days, you are essentially cheering for laundry. And you know what? We just don’t care about that laundry anymore, because it’s so evident that those wearing it don’t care either. And without a rooting interest, frankly, just about any sport becomes difficult to follow with any sort of regularity.

Is it that much better at the college level? We’d like to think so – after all, a player chooses where to go to play his college ball, and part of us really wants to believe that players who choose to attend our alma maters share some of the same hopes and dreams we had when we first stepped on campus years ago. It can’t ALL be based on booster gifts, coaching personalities, and co-eds, right? (Though, in fairness, we had hopes and dreams for the same co-eds. We just had no chance.)

No one knows for sure, of course, and we’ll admit that our view is a rosy one, especially as it pertains to top level players. But we’d rather cast our lots with the guys who, at the margins, are playing for fun rather than the guys who are, at the margins, playing as a job.

So, we’ll be watching the Draft tonight – partly for fun, but partly to say goodbye to players that we won’t see or read much about again. It’s the cyclical nature of college sports, but it’s still kind of sad.

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Wait a second … that doesn’t seem right after several days off … let’s try that again:

ALL THE CRAP THAT’S HAPPENED IN THE LAST WEEK

That’s better. Quick roundup of the biggest stories, with a little link love for our brother blogs:

Paul Hewitt Stands Tall, States the Obvious

At last week’s meeting of the Knight Commission (the body studying academic standards for NCAA athletics), Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt earned a lot of press by voicing controversial, even shocking, opinions about all that is wrong with the current student-athlete model. Radical stuff, like “Eligibility rather than academic growth has become our biggest concern”, and “Agents are turning college campuses into the Wild West.” Whoa, whoa, Paul … drop one bomb at a time, baby, we weren’t prepared. Hang on, we’ll sit down. OK, go on:

“While I like to see everyone who reaches college earn a degree,” Hewitt said, “we need to find more effective ways to achieve our goals. I do have a problem with putting numbers out there, saying ‘Meet these numbers or else. You’re turning education into a race.”

Phew … radical, radical man. You’re lucky you didn’t lose your job for saying crazy stuff like that.

Of course Hewitt is right, and we all know he’s right – it’s just that no one in the powers that be care, since they can’t hear him over the sound of cash registers. And Hewitt had some thoughts about that as well:

[Hewitt] said he’d like to see basketball become a one-semester sport and that coaches overall would like to see a shorter schedule, but he admitted it’s “not going to happen” because of the lucrative television money that comes from playing more games, even in early November.

Whoa, Paul – we were with you right up until you suggested cutting games. We have a habit to feed, you know. Crazy talk like that will get us back on the harder junk.

CHOOSE!

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Ohio – More or Less Frightening Than Mexico?

The question above poses an odd query to anyone with neither affinity or hate for either locale – your corn comes from the former, your patently racist joke tortillas come from the latter. But if you drink heartily of the haterade this country prides itself on, then you likely have a fairly negative view of one or both of these locations, making a choice between them difficult.

More evidence to confuse the decision: in Ohio, college basketball players are shooting at police officers:

Akron basketball player Rydell Brooks was arrested early Sunday after shooting at police officers during a foot chase following a traffic stop.

Akron police said the 20-year-old Brooks ran from a car and fired several times as police officers chased him. He was being held in Summit County Jail and faces attempted murder and felonious assault charges.

We guess that he won’t be suiting up for the Zips anytime soon.

But in Mexico, you can get the shit beaten out of you by two American hoops players, and nobody will be charged because “all you people look alike”:

The person who was injured, a Michigan resident who was down there on an internship, still maintain it was [Portland State player Scott] Morrison who broke his jaw. He and his family are still seeking to have charges brought (if they can find anyone who can corroborate his story) and are looking into a civil action.

Protecting and serving Akron while fielding bullets from a bench guard, or taking slugs in a foreign land, first from a countryman and then from a shady judicial system? CHOOSE!

TWO OTHER STORIES THAT WE ENJOYED FOR NO GOOD REASON

All-Night Buffets in Boca Raton, Be Warned

The reports range in commitment level from “we love him, but we’re not in love with him” to a journalistic post-coital cigarette, but
Mike Jarvis appears to be the next head coach at Florida Atlantic.

Jarvis’ kissy talk about how much he loves the school and the area may well be a necessary part of the contract, considering how well FAU’s last big name lay worked out.

Our Nerd Hearts Swell with Blood

We’ve roundly enjoyed Dana O’Neil’s work since joining tWWL’s hoops crew from the Philadelphia Daily News, since she forgot to burn her journalism degree when setting up shop in Bristol. Her latest filing about the Cal Tech basketball team is particularly superb, and not just because it mentions the Kuiper Belt. (Though we’ll admit a certain fondness for astrophysics. What?)

No, we love this article for its self-deprecating tone (O’Neil admits she has no idea what these guys are saying when speaking about their research internships) and for it’s subtle shot at the deaf (“Caltech won just one game this year and it was against Gallaudet, the nation’s leading university for the hearing impaired.”) And because it gives us the excuse to post the following, evidence that even at Caltech you’ll find many an ill-spent youth, albeit in the other direction: