The word “culture” is thrown around a lot in sports. New coaches come in and talk about building a “culture of winning” or a “culture of hard work.” Frequently that attitude is lauded as building character or heralding a new era of competitiveness; but sometimes, the “culture of winning” morphs from an inspirational ideal into... Continue Reading →
Remember when swimmer Katie Ledecky won the 800-meter freestyle at the 2016 Olympic Games? She finished more than eleven seconds ahead of her closest competitor—a gap that show-cased the then nineteen-year-old’s dominance in the pool and cemented her status as an Olympic superstar. When the games ended, Ledecky packed up her five medals (four gold,... Continue Reading →
The NCAA is coming down from its high horse on enforcement of amateurism rules, at least for Disney. On Friday, USA Today columnist Nancy Armour reported that the NCAA will allow Arike Ogunbowale (the Notre Dame guard who drilled back-to-back buzzer beaters in the National Semifinals and Finals to lead the Irish to this year's National Championship) to compete... Continue Reading →
The first Thursday night primetime game of the second week of the NCAA tournament on CBS featured eleventh-seeded Loyola University Chicago taking on seventh-seeded Nevada, while third-seeded Michigan and seventh-seeded Texas A&M were relegated to TBS. In a season marked by the "resolution" of academic fraud at UNC, Louisville's stripped national championship and the FBI... Continue Reading →
March Madness is nothing without its Cinderellas; and it has been a big week for the little guys. For the first time in the history of the tournament, a 16 seed took out a 1 seed as the UMBC Retrievers outclassed overall number one seed Virginia in Charlotte on Friday. Two 13 seeds shocked 4... Continue Reading →
But don't blame Ayton for taking it There have always been villains in college basketball going into the NCAA tournament--just ask Duke. But this year, the "bad guys" are that much easier to identify as a result of the current FBI probe into college basketball. Of these bad guys, Arizona stands out as easily the... Continue Reading →
After Arizona Head Coach Sean Miller was directly linked to a $100,000 payment offer to his freshman phenom and now PAC-12 Player of the Year, Deandre Ayton, I argued that the pay for play culture in college basketball was the logical consequence of the influx of money the NCAA receives and its unwillingness to accept governance responsibility... Continue Reading →
NCAA Division I men’s basketball had a tough week. On Tuesday, Louisville was officially stripped of 123 wins from 2012-2015, including its 2013 National Championship, after an NCAA investigation discovered the program funded the services of strippers and prostitutes for current and prospective student-athletes with university funds. Ironically, this penalty had nothing to do with the... Continue Reading →
