Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

St. Bonaventure University is world-renowned for, among other things, its stunning mathmatics department. (This is chiefly because of my father's presence on the faculty of that department, ahem.)

SBU's "jewel-in-the-crown" has been its Division I men's basketball program, although frankly it's been mainly mediocre with occasional flashes of talent most of the years since Bob Lanier played there. Every few years or so they get good enough to make the NIT, and even more rarely they actually get into the NCAA tournament, to an invariable first-round exit. SBU is located in rural Western New York state, tucked immediately between the towns of Olean and Allegany. It's not a big school -- roughly 2,200 students -- but it's a pretty good one, although over the last decade it's become something of a party school. The lack of size coupled with the school's rural location has pretty much put it in semi-permanent "also-ran" status when it comes to the all-important recruiting of basketball talent. It's simply very hard to get top-flight talent, coming usually from urban landscapes, to come to a rural program that's a 90-minute drive from the nearest large city and play for a program that's been in the doldrums for years. Nevertheless, SBU continues to spend large amounts of money on its basketball program, mainly to keep the alumni happy.

Now, I wonder if that might be in jeopardy, after the current train-wreck winds its course.

Basically, a player who was ineligible according to NCAA rules was allowed to play, after the head coach somehow strong-armed the kid through the admissions process. The NCAA found out and required the Bonnies to forfeit six of the games they've already played this year, the effect of which is to basically ruin the season. That's bad enough, but it got even worse when the players themselves -- absent any leadership or discipline from anyone in a faculty position at all -- decided that they were simply not going to show up for their last two games of the year, either. That's right: the players, in a fit of pique, threw in the towel on the season. I envision them saying, en masse and in their bast Cartman-from-South Park voices, "Screw you guys, I'm going home."

And the SBU administration's response to all this? Variants of "Huh-whuh?", "Not me!", "Duh..." and, most endearing of all, "No comment because I'm in California on 'University Business'." Now the Atlantic-Ten conference is justifyably angry; Bonnies ticket holders are justifyably angry; the teams who were supposed to play the Bonnies in those games are justifyably angry. The whole business may well cost the SBU president, athletic director, and basketball head coach their jobs.

Good.

(Frank admission: I don't really care much about NCAA basketball in general or March Madness in particular -- it's my least favorite of the year's major sporting events. But this whole business is disgraceful.)