DID SABAN CAST SHADE ON ’BAMA HOOPS?
Alabama’s basketball program has been criticized for how it handled the alleged involvement of its players in a shooting death in downtown Tuscaloosa in January.
The latest condemnation, depending on how fluent you are in reading between the lines, might be coming from down the hall.
Crimson Tide football coach Nick Saban announced Monday that freshman defensive back Tony Mitchell has been indefinitely suspended from all team activities after being arrested in Florida for driving 141 mph and possession of marijuana, $7,000 in cash and a loaded firearm.
“Everybody’s got an opportunity to make choices and decisions,” Saban said in a news conference. “There’s no such thing as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You have to be responsible about who you’re with, who you’re around, what you do and who you associate yourself with, along with the situations you put yourself in.
“It is what it is, but there is cause and effect when you make choices and decisions
that put you in bad situations.”
An interesting choice of words: “wrong place at the wrong time.”
That’s essentially what basketball coach Nate Oats, whose top-seeded Crimson Tide faces San Diego State in the Sweet 16 on Friday in Louisville, Ky., said in defending the decision not to suspend star freshman Brandon Miller after he reportedly transported a gun to teammate Darius Miles that was allegedly used in a murder. Miller is cooperating with a police investigation. He has not been charged with a crime.
“Can’t control everything anybody does outside of practice,” Oats said at the time. “Nobody knew that was going to happen. College kids are out, Brandon hasn’t been in any type of trouble nor is he in any type of trouble in this case. Wrong spot at the wrong time.”
Oats later apologized for his “poor choice of words.”
Body clocks
SDSU is scheduled to fly to Louisville via an NCAAsupplied charter today at 1 p.m., arriving sometime around 8 p.m. ET.
The next morning, the Aztecs were given the first practice slot at Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center at 10 a.m. (or 7 a.m. on their body clocks).
“If we can get out on time, I think we’ll be fine,” coach Brian Dutcher said of the flight. “But we can’t be scheduled to leave at 1 and then leave at 5, where he get to the hotel at midnight and be eating at 2 in the morning. Then that will make it really hard.”
Last week, they requested a 1 p.m. departure from San Diego to Orlando and were given 3 p.m., then were delayed until 5 and didn’t land until almost midnight.
“I was eating chicken wings at 2 in the morning,”
Dutcher said. “I wasn’t at my best the next day.”
Recovery period
The team flew back from Orlando, Fla., on Saturday night, then got Sunday off. Lost in the euphoria of Mountain West Tournament title and advancing to the Sweet 16 is how grueling it is. They’d been on the road seven of the previous 10 days.
“When we met the next day (on Monday), they still looked tired,” Dutcher said. “It’s a long season. As much as we’re all excited to play, and they’re as excited as anybody, there’s a recovery period that goes on.”
Practice Monday lasted only about an hour.
“We did enough on the floor to start working toward a game plan,” he said, “then we’ll go harder (Tuesday) and then really hard (today), then light again (Thursday) leading into the game.”
Officials advance
The NCAA announced the pool of 40 officials eligible to work the Sweet 16. For officials, it is like the teams — trying to advance to later rounds through good performances.
On the list are all six officials who worked SDSU’s two games in Orlando last week: Todd Austin, A.J. Desai and Kipp Kissinger against Charleston, and Pat Adams, Tony Chiazza and
Mike Reed against Furman.
Reed is a familiar face from the Mountain West. Four others made the cut:
Eric Curry, John Higgins, Michael Irving and Tony Padilla.
The most surprising omission is Michael Greenstein, the San Diego-based official whom many in the Mountain West and Pac-12 rate as the best on the West Coast. Also not advancing: Dave Hall and Larry Spaulding (who both worked the Mountain West final), and Verne Harris and
Kelly Pfeifer (who both worked the Pac-12 final).
The biggest gripe from the opening weekend came after a big, strong Tennessee team bullied Duke off the floor in Orlando. Did the officials let them play too much?
“It all depends on how much of an effect the media had on the officials after the Tennessee game,” Dutcher said. “I wouldn’t want to be Tennessee the next game. They’ll probably call every single foul. We’ll see if they felt the first round was a little too physical and discussed it with the officials.”
Tournament distribution
The NCAA Tournament distributes a portion of its billion-dollar revenues to the conferences of participating schools through a system of “units.” You get one for each game you play, win or lose, for the next six years. The figures for this season haven’t been released, but last year’s units were worth $338,887.38.
That computes to about $2 million per unit over the six years, or roughly $182,000 per school. Most conferences distribute the money equally among its members, minus a modest bonus for those that earned them.
For the Mountain West in 2023, that already means $14 million over the next six years from six units: three from SDSU and one each from Utah State, Boise State and Nevada playing in a game but losing. If the Aztecs keep winning, the numbers keep going up.
The MW record is seven units, in 2011 (when SDSU and BYU both reached the Sweet 16) and 2013 (when five teams made the tournament). The conference also got six in 2010.