NCAA Football Mid Majors Basketball

With the Big Ten fledgling network still involved in a public spat with Comcast, comparisons to the Mountain West's less than spectacular first year with "The mtn." sports channel are inevitable. In the first year of operation, the mtn. has made it to a whopping 1.2 million homes.

It appears to be a flop. Utah and BYU took the lead and got the rest of the Mountain West members to help foot the bill in hiring an attorney to explore options with their TV deal.

In its annual meeting Tuesday, the MWC Board of Directors voted unanimously to retain Kelly Crabb, the lawyer originally hired and retained last week by BYU and Utah, in efforts to clarify the nature of the TV contract and delineate distribution strategies of The mtn. network.

Crabb will work with Commissioner Craig Thompson and an ad hoc committee made up of three Board members - BYU President Cecil Samuelson, Texas Christian University Chancellor Victor Boschini and Colorado State University President Larry Edward Penley. The conference presidents spearheaded the TV deal that the MWC settled on a year ago with the network co-owned by Comcast Cable and CBS' College Sports Television.

However, there is widespread displeasure because of the troubles in getting The mtn., distributed.

This has fueled speculation that the Mountain West may try to find a way to get out of its deal, and pull the plug on the mtn. The mtn. has not been picked up by either satellite provider, and very few sizable cable operators in the markets (PDF) where the schools operate (Comcast in Utah and Cox in Las Vegas and San Diego are the largest carriers that have it).

The NCAA released its Academic Progress Reports (APR) for every school and the teams for each sport. A total of 6110 teams are included. You can view each school's individual report (they are in PDF). The APR is supposed to be a rolling 4-year average, but the NCAA isn't at that point. This is only the third year so there are adjustments and leeway given to some teams. The grace period is granted only if they are showing that they are closing on meeting the magic number of 925 by the time the 4th year is reached. (The APR records started being kept in the 2003-04 school year.)

If a team is at 900 or so, they won't be getting penalized immediately. The penalties can range from warning letters, practice restrictions, lack of access to postseason competition, restricted membership and loss of scholarships for the teams that don't meet performance standards. Already, teams across various collegiate sports have been penalized with scholarship losses.

The BCS schools for football and basketball, generally are in good shape. Only a few programs are facing scholarship reductions. Many are close or have been warned, but scholarship reductions are rather limited. Some of the notable teams penalized after this latest report:

Has it really been 7 years since the last misguided attempts by college coaches and the NCAA to try and ban legal gambling on college sports. Cynically, I expect that the Toledo point shaving scandal that is now blossoming will renew calls for the sort of ban. They will cite the gambling on college sports as being the reason for it happening. Not that it would matter in this day and age. Not with the internet, offshore betting houses, legal sportsbooks in Canada and England. That won't matter. Someone will strike a righteous tone of how legal gambling and publishing point spreads encourages scandals like this.

It's a joke. How do you think Federal officials became aware of something fishy going on at Toledo in the first place?

The oddsmaker, Kenny White, chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sports Consultants, said that beginning in the 2004 season he and his associates noticed that there was heavy betting on certain Toledo football games and those of another Mid-American Conference team he declined to name.

"But then it stopped and it was just Toledo," he said.

The unusual betting pattern continued into the 2005 season, according to White. As his suspicions grew, he watched tape of all of Toledo's football games in 2004 and part of 2005.

"We really couldn't pinpoint a single player or coach or official," he said. "But we knew something was happening there."

At that point, about October 2005, White said he filed a report with the Nevada Gaming Commission and the NCAA. His report did not mention basketball games.

It's in legal sportsbooks' best interest to make sure the games are clean. If the games are being fixed or point-shaving, it hurts them. Notice that even the NCAA was notified of the problem. The sportsbooks are happy to alert the NCAA to potential scandals.

Previously at Fanouse:
Point Shaving at Toledo

I keep going back and forth as to whether point shaving schemes at smaller schools make more or less sense. On the one hand, the programs and the players draw a lot less scrutiny as to the actions. Making it easier for things to come in under the radar.

The counter-argument is that these smaller programs hardly see the heavier gambling action. So if there is any significant betting one way or the other, it can catch everyone's attention when there is sudden swing.

The Toledo Athletic Department is finding itself rocked with a scandal that definitely involves the football team and quite possibly involves the basketball team as well.

As the 2005 GMAC Bowl drew closer, a Michigan gambler assured other bettors that University of Toledo football player Harvey "Scooter" McDougle offered bribes to teammates so the point spread would be covered, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Mr. McDougle, 22, who was charged Thursday in U.S. District Court in Detroit with conspiring with others in a points-shaving scheme, sat out the game because of injuries.

So far no other players have been named.

McDougle was charged in Federal Court with "conspiring to bribe to affect the outcome of a sporting event." This carries a maximum sentence of 5 years and a $250,000 fine.

The guy arranging everything so far has only been identified as "Gary." He would place the wagers in casinos in Canada. At least one other player was offered around $10,000 to sit out a game. McDougle received cars, cash and other gifts from "Gary."

The filings indicate that the basketball team may have been involved in point shaving as well. "Gary" apparently bet on both sports and McDougle may have helped him in contacting basketball players.

This will be a huge blow to Toledo Football Coach Tom Amstutz. He's considered one of the better coaches in the MAC and often mentioned as a potential target for the bigger name schools. Few coaches, though, survive point shaving scandals.

When he was named the head coach at New Mexico last week, former Iowa basketball coach Steve Alford (right) said all the right things. Instead of backhanding the University of Iowa for a perceived lack of commitment toward basketball, he simply said it was the right time to make such a move, and he talked up the atmosphere he was going to experience at New Mexico.

We all knew he was full of crap, but at least he wasn't tossing his Iowa bosses down the stairs for not caring enough about basketball.

As it turns out, he was simply biding his time.

Monday, during an interview on ESPN Radio with Trey Wingo, Alford made his feelings known. He said that after growing up in Indiana, he was "just really eager to get somewhere where they were that passionate about basketball".

He went on to tell Wingo that it was tough to coach the "second" program on campus.

"Because the recruits see that, and the recruits see the commitment," Alford told Wingo, who was filling in for Dan Patrick. "I can talk for eight years all I want at Iowa about trying to get my own strength coach, my own weight room and own practice facility, but when that never happens and $100 million is being put into football complexes, recruits see that."