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.)

[blows on pitchpipe, hums, taps microphone]

It won’t be easy – you’ll think me strange
As I try to explain what happened
Even though you’ll still hate me after all that I’ve done

You won’t believe me
All you will see is a league of sixteen
Although you only care for the [original] nine
At least eight play football for you!

We had to let it happen, we had to change
Couldn’t stay away from fall TV appeal
Looking down to the South, wanting all of that cash

So I chose football
Running around, grabbing anyone new
Even if they played no hoop at all
With weak academics, too …

Don’t cry for me, Eastern Seaboard
The truth is, you’ll never leave us
Even when St. Johns
Must play Blue Demons
We broke our promise
But you won’t leave us

And as for Cardinals and Notre Dame
Sure, I invited them in
Though it seemed our league name would no longer make sense

Though they brought bowl games
They are not the solutions they promised to be
The answer was here all the time
With Catholics, Pitt and Orange, too …

Don’t cry for me, Eastern Seaboard
In time, you’ll see we still love you
When you retire down
To north of Tampa
Thank me that UConn
Must play South Florida

[straightens tie, wipes eyes]

Was it all too much?
There’s nothing more I must explain to you…