After the game last night, which I did not watch but followed on the computer periodically, I was thinking about the issue of dishonesty, and how it impacts the game, the coaches, and the careers of coaches. For years I have publicly trashed The Squid for his lack of integrity during the early and middle of his coaching career. He was dirty at UMass and at Memphis, but he slipped out of town each town just as the NCAA was coming in the front door. The defense that has always been offered (and which is already being offered as a defense for Deputy Dog) is that the NCAA didn't find any violations by the coach. Now that may be true, but two things came to mind at this point in my thought process. First of all, if Marcus Camby had been ineligible, and if Derrick Rose had never played for Memphis, what would The Squid's career have been? At UMass, without Camby, the team would not have been a Final 4 quality team, and may not have even made the NCAA Tournament any of the 3 years Camby played. And he should not have eligible for even one year, let alone 4. So the success of the team, sullied as it was by the porn, the jewelry, the car, the money and the agent, carried The Squid to his next gig, the head coach of the NJ Nets. After several years in purgatory, he re-emerged at Memphis, and the capstone of his career there was the Rose year. Again, if Rose doesn't get to play that season, The Squid never gets the UK job. IN all likelihood, The Squid would be in a similar position to Larry Eustachy or Kelvin Sampson, coaching in the lower tier of college basketball due to some kind of serious issue like cheating or alcohol abuse. In short, The Squid would never have achieved anything resembling his current status if he had not cheated, so in his case it is quite fair to say that his career is totally predicated on dishonsty. But for the dishonesty, he would be nothing more than a run of the mill Division 1 coach.
The other issue is generally known as 'plausible deniability.' It's used all the time in all kinds of settings, but it is clear that Roy will use it to defend himself and his coaching staff as the UNC debacle moves forward. But I was watching the movie 'Spotlight' the other night, and there was a scene where the head of the Spotlight team (played by Michael Keaton) is in a meeting with the Headmaster of Boston College High School, discussing a former hockey coach and priest who was sexually abusing his players. Keaton made the assertion that everyone at the school must have known, and a public relations type who was obviously trying to protect the school and the Church from what was coming, asserted that the then headmaster could not possibly have known anything about the abuse. The current headmaster interjected that if HE had been the headmaster during the period when the abuse took place, he WOULD have known, since it was his job to know everything that was going on. It was an interesting assertion, and one I happen to find compelling and accurate, and I believe is also true for any head coach of a big time division 1 basketball program. Ergo, not only was The Squid aware of the issues with Camby, he ignored them. Same for Rose. And the same for Roy, and for Smith, and even for the Baron himself, during the years when his players point shaved and threw games.
Long winded, I know, but I had to get it out. I just infuriates me that the sports media are playing this down to the extant that they are. I just hope that this time UNC gets what they deserve.
Good stuff! 
