After this, we'll let it go

The charade involving Mike Garrett/Tim Floyd/O.J. Mayo and USC basketball isn't WAC-related so we need to let it go. We will still be watching to see what the sloth in quicksand, er, the NCAA, dishes out in term of penalties but we'll re-focus on WAC hoops right after the following George Dohrmann column:

George Dohrmann
Sports Illustrated

USC would like you to believe that when it self-imposed sanctions on its basketball program last Sunday, it dropped the hammer on its troubled hoops program.

A ban on postseason play this season, a loss of one scholarship this year and the next, restrictions on recruiting ... It was a litany of wrist slaps that the Trojans hope will be viewed as equitable punishment for the numerous NCAA violations committed during star guard O.J. Mayo's one year in Troy.

"When we've done something wrong," USC athletic director Mike Garrett said, "we have an obligation to do something about it and that is exactly what we are doing here."

What Garrett and the Trojans also did was take everyone, including the members of the NCAA's Committee on Infractions (COI), for fools...

Go here for the remainder.

A small collection of notes and links

One thing we do feel badly about in the USC - O.J. Mayo - Tim Floyd Lie-apalooza is that the present Trojan basketball players bear the brunt of at least some of the penalties. Mayo is in the NBA and handsomely rewarded, just like in his so-called prep and college days. Ditto for Floyd.

AD Mike Garrett has the credibility of Baghdad Bob. Will the NCAA at least require that he banish himself to his see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil (as for the latter, it's unless I am desperate to save our most fair-haired son, our big bucks football program) island in Beverly Hills?

Will the NCAA do just such to itself for its obvious myopia? Are there any islands near Indianapolis? How about a sandbar in the Mississippi?

Mike DeCourcey has a nice summary here.

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Chris Murray looks at the pro potential throughout the WAC and more. Go here.

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6-foot-10 Andy Poling is leaving Gonzaga. Does Idaho and or Boise State have a shot or is he headed home to one of the Portlands? Poling played just 23 minutes in six games this season. He's only a (redshirt) freshman but it appears that means he will forfeit a year of D-1 eligibility since he cannot re-redshirt.

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Scout's Dave Telep has a brief post up today about Nevada recruiting target K.C. Ross-Miller unofficially hitting Oklahoma State and Baylor this week and Oklahoma next week. Again, our ample gut feeling is that the point doesn't end up too far from home -- a prediction not based on any specific knowledge.

Ross-Miller's wing teammate Titus Rubles still has Nevada and New Mexico State pitching some woo.

USC spanks itself, lightly

Did you feel that seismic jolt emanating out of southern California?

Funny, neither did we.

Is Mike Garrett's announcement because of worry about impending (we call it "Waiting For Godot") sanctions from the NCAA?

Or a hey-move-on-nothing-to-see-we'll-handle-it-here-ourselves-because-we-are-in-control message?

It's hard not be cynical as USC has self-imposed the following on its basketball program:

• A reduction of one scholarship for the 2009-10 and 2010-11 academic years.

• Reducing the number of coaches permitted to recruit off-campus by one during the summer of 2010.

• Reducing the number of recruiting days for the 2010-11 academic year, to 110.

One schollie, for two years including the present one? Oh that really hurts. Is the thinking that because O.J. Mayo took up just one...? If the NCAA isn't insulted by that...

The number of coaches and recruiting days reductions are a joke considering SoCal's geographical location in the basketball fertile southern California area. If you can't get it done with a bit less than a third of the calendar year available to recruit, with one less coach and with PAC-10 membership, well, an incompetency hearing should be scheduled.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled WAC programming.