Is it ever going to end

Good grief!!!

Have we become MU? Miami U in its heyday?

What in the world is going on?

If half of this stuff is true, it speaks to lack of institutional control. Insufficient warning and punishment from the top (at the outset of the first or second incident) to set the tone and hopefully deter new incidents.

What do others think?

Leaving aside the very legit concerns about player behavior that I voiced earlier, another part of me is beginning to wonder about the steady stream of stories coming out of the KC Star.

Specifically, I have open questions about the authors' motivation, their background, and their objectivity. The last two were not done by the KU beat guys, Newell and Bedore, but instead by people I've never heard of. They are also regurgitating every other recent incident and alleged KU player transgression in every new article--which serves to give the inpresssion of the Wild West or inmates running the insane asylum at KU.

Lastly, I'm not an expert on the latest Title IX (is it?) regulations, but I have been led to believe that, once incidents like those reported are in the hands of the university, they remain confidential to protect all parties (presumably until or unless there are actual charges pursued on court?). If that's true, and I defer to people who know the new processes, then someone inside KU is leaking a steady stream of internal, confidential info to a source at the Star. Not only that, but Coach Self and others who might be able to talk about the incident(s) and perhaps balance out the picture are defenseless because they cannot do so. And that takes me back to my concern above about uncertain intent, background, and motivation.

Are the stories credible and fair game? Or do they constitute an intentional hachet job against KU?

I'd really like to have more information. But regardless, this is not an attempt by me to dismiss what appears to be an alarming set of trends and behaviors associated with the current team. Behaviors that obviously are distracting and threaten to take away from what should otherwise be a thrilling, memorable, and historic (13) season.

Mellinger's take on the domestic violence allegations (not the vandalism, since it just came out) strike me as rational:

"Now, this is a bigger deal.

We don’t know if a police report was ever made, but the fact no charges were filed is why he’s playing.

Vick may have been “suspended” — he missed two games last season, though at the time Self said Vick was sick — but with no criminal charges, there was no further punishment that we know about.

University Title IX investigations are tricky. After the game last night, Self read from a prepared statement that essentially said he hasn’t been made aware of anything. It was, basically, a 95-word no comment.

Now, obviously I think he knows more than he’s letting on. But I do believe the university keeps as much of this away from coaches as possible, which calls into question a system in which the coach might not have all the information he might need to make a punishment.

Self is putting himself out there a bit on this, and that’s interesting for a lot of reasons. He is a wildly successful coach. After he retires, there will be a statue of him or something named after him at Allen Fieldhouse. He’ll be inducted to various Halls of Fame. He makes many millions of dollars.

He has, in other words, nothing to gain by sticking up for a player — especially, if we’re honest, a role player — unless he knows more of what happened than the portion of the story we know so far from Laura Bauer’s excellent reporting.

The fact that no criminal charges were filed gives Self room to do this. But I don’t think Self would let play Vick if he didn’t know something more. Self suspended Bragg when he was charged with violence against a woman, and let him back on the team after the prosecutor said surveillance video showed the woman should be charged instead.

This is a difficult needle to thread. A coach has to be aware of any appearance of being tolerant about domestic violence. But he also needs to be fair, and support his players when he can.

Here’s what I keep landing on: Self does not have a track record of being soft on things like this."

Read more here: www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-bl...9.html#storylink=cpy

I've gotten to the point in life where I don't give two $$$$$ what ESPN, Purps, or MethU folks say about KU. Haters are gonna hate. I have the utmost respect for Coach Self, and know that he is all but certain to be pursuing what he believes is the best course for the university, team, and individual players. I also know that he and other coaches are increasingly bound by a lot of regulations and gag orders that can seem off-putting to fans and critics, but I'm not going to be judge and jury over him without inside knowledge.

Hopefully it's all overblown or settled, and the team can just focus on their goals on the court.

The facts are woefully incomplete. Lots of assertions out there, but I want to see the police charges before jumping to conclusions.

The Star writers on this (both of whom have never done a KU story until now) are very busy pumping themselves and their stories on Twitter ("Breaking news!") and the Star is putting the latest on the front page as the top story. It could be solidly grounded, or it could be yellow journalism. We won't know until said police charges prove that there officially is (or isn't) wrong-doing.

I'm not saying let's sweep this under the rug, but I am saying let's wait until all sides of the story are put forth, and official charges are made, before we jump to conclusions. Or you can do what you want, but that's where I'm coming down.

PS: And yes, the look for KU is horrible right now. All the more reason that this needs to get addressed, one way or the other. From a PR, image, and branding standpoint, I'm not sure that the university can afford to not address this due to Title IX privacy or investigative restrictions.

Ugh.

Double Ugh.

These newbie Star reporters had better have their facts straight, or KU might come down on them like a ton of bricks. All the more so since the stories are being splashed all over the country, which leads to a "guilty until proven innocent" mentality in the court of (non-KU) public opinion.

That sounds good, but just what does it mean? I could propose several possibilities here, but will choose not to further muddy the agua with my uninformed commentary.