On the Basketball FBI Thing

Obviously given the state of North Texas basketball and the low stature among the nation’s programs (not to mention in Texas), this scandal has very little reach into Denton that we can tell.

I cannot help but think it is best summed up thusly, by Deadspin’s Patrick Redford:

The deep irony here is that while players should get paid, in this system, they are getting paid. The problem—a shadowy network of middlemen and grifters who can abuse the NCAA’s repressive gray market for talent to enrich themselves, which turns the recruiting scene into the shadiest possible place—would be resolved by abolishing the institution that creates the conditions in which the problem exists. The FBI is enforcing rules that exist for no other reason than to theoretically require FBI enforcement; without them, there would be nothing to see here but people doing business.

As it pertains to NT, this season was always going to be a strange transition into the Grant McCasland era. Coach McCasland has done his rounds making everyone feel good about the program and scrubbing it clean of the losing as best as one can without doing some winning. He will get his chance to perform but college basketball as a whole is taking a reputation hit and NT also.