The suspension
To wrap it all up, just hours before Big Ten football gets going with media days in Chicago, a deeper look at why the NCAA suspended Tom Izzo for a game last season for a secondary violation.
To reiterate, Branden Dawson was not and is not on trial here. As Jennifer Smith said, he had no idea Desmond Smith had officially tagged himself with MSU “booster” status when he got a ride from him, and he obviously had nothing to do with the camp employment. He’s guilty of being a good player with a lot of suitors who were scrambling to get his attention.
“You know, he’s an 18-year-old kid, who was introduced to an individual by his high school coach, who he trusted,” Jennifer Smith said of Dawson. “I mean, he didn’t, his AAU coaches took him to UCLA, they took him to DePaul, I think. His high school coaches took him to DePaul, Purdue. So for him to have someone take him here seemed very much in line with what he had been doing the past two years.”
Now we know a lot more about this story –- we know that it was related to a heated recruiting battle, not just a random gaffe -- but it still seems strange to me, especially considering the fact that no one else has been suspended under this particular rule.
“Based on conversations with other schools, I would have expected more (by now),” Jennifer Smith said.
Again, if something truly shady went on here, why halt the investigation with a secondary violation and a suspension? If not, why the suspension?
The next question is, why did MSU put so much effort into Desmond Smith?
“It wasn’t necessary, but I guess that’s the route they took,” Renaldo Thomas said. “We didn’t need no help.”
Thomas said he was “investigated to the fullest,” talking with investigators for two and a half hours.
“All I could do was stand on what I could stand on. The truth,” Thomas said. “Coach Izzo did nothing wrong here and I’m sad he got the suspension.”
As for the phone calls to Desmond Smith, Izzo said this: “If you look back at Mike Peplowski, Matt Steigenga’s parents, coaches, Steve Smith’s, I bet you I talked to Matt Steigenga’s dad -- you were allowed to do it (then) -- five times a day for months.”
Another question: How did this turn into an investigation?
“You have to get turned in by somebody, don’t you?” Izzo said.
There was some speculation that Purdue turned in MSU. Hondo Carpenter asked Matt Painter if he had any contact with the NCAA in relation to Izzo’s suspension after MSU’s loss at Purdue last season. Painter said he didn’t realize Izzo had been suspended.
That may seem outlandish, but Jennifer Smith believes the basketball focus group acted on anonymous Internet stuff –- perhaps an email or a thread on a message board.
However it happened, it happened. And it will be interesting to see if it happens to anyone else.
In July of 2010, ESPN’s Dana O’Neil polled 20 high-profile coaches, representing the six “power” conferences (Big Ten, ACC, Big East, Big 12, Pac-10, SEC). Eight of the 20 said they don’t trust their colleagues at all, and five more said they trust fewer than 10 of their colleagues in the business.
However, 11 of the 20 cited the Big Ten as the cleanest league (14 of the 20 cited the SEC as the dirtiest) and Izzo even got an anonymous mention from one of his peers.
“Look at Michigan State,” one coach said. “They’re there every year. When you see the dips, then you wonder. What happened? What didn’t happen? But a guy like Tom Izzo, he’s there every year because you know what his program is about and so do his players. There’s a consistency and an integrity.”
The past year hurt Izzo. His face has appeared on “Outside the Lines” intro reels of coaches who have recently been in NCAA trouble. That’s humiliating for a guy who has been pretty much universally identified as a "white hat" in the grayish world of college basketball. But I don’t get the sense that the overall perception of Izzo has changed.
“Izzo, he’s able to get guys without cheating because it’s the right program,” Dan Wetzel said. “He’s got this thing built like that. He’s at really the number one program in the Midwest, so he can get away with that. He can get two to three really good players every year from Michigan and Ohio. And look at how he recruits. He’s not out chasing kids in Brooklyn and L.A. and stuff like that. And he barely ever gets the great player. He signs very few superstars nowadays.”
MSU fans will probably interpret this story differently than, say, Purdue fans. To me, the bottom line is this: Recruiting in college basketball is much more complex than a lot of people realize, and I think that's true for everyone in the game.
And with that, time to turn full attention to football. It all gets started today at 11 a.m. Eastern with Ron Zook (catch coverage on the Big Ten Network), and Mark Dantonio actually goes last among the 12 coaches from 2:30 to 2:45. The Big Ten released its media-chosen "watch list" this morning (it replaces the preseason picks for favorites and players of the year), and it included Kirk Cousins and Denard Robinson, for what it's worth. I’ll be back this afternoon with all the latest. Reminder: First live chat of 2011-12 is set for noon Friday.
