An asterisk can't ruin UMass' Final Four dream

Sporting News, The, June 9, 1997 by Mike DeCourcy

As John Calipari directed the Massachusetts Minutemen toward the school's first appearance in the Final Four in 1995-96, he found himself referring to the experience any number of times as "a dream season."

Are we to believe that's all it was? A dream?

After examining the case of star center Marcus Camby's involvement with an agent and concluding there was nothing Umass should have known -- he was charged with accepting about $28,000 while in school -- the NCAA chose to punish the Minutemen by making them vacate their Final Four appearance.

Calipari is gone to coach the New Jersey Nets, Camby is gone to the Toronto Raptors and now the official record of their greatest achievement is gone. as well. You saw them there at the Meadowlands, playing Kentucky in a stirring, near-classic semifinal. The NCAA insists it doesn't count.

"It won't take away from the season," Calipari says. "Not in my mind. I was proud of the staff, proud of the players, proud of everything we accomplished. Think about going undefeated through 25 games, or how we beat Georgetown to make the Final Four. That won't just go away."

The various constituencies comprising the NCAA have made a routine of overstepping the bounds of their authority, from regulations imposed upon how many all-star games a high school athlete can play to the threats by the men's basketball committee about withholding Final Four credentials from newspapers that publish point spreads.

No NCAA action is quite so audacious, though, as the insistence upon rewriting history, which happened to 1971 Villanova, 1980 UCLA, 1985 Memphis, among others.

Memphis displays a banner proclaiming its '85 Final Four trip as proudly as its run to the 1973 title game. UMass will leave its banner intact at Mullins Center.

Similarly, the folks who publish the NCAA records books are to be commended for their mode of "cooperation" with this decree. Rather than strike mention of the teams whose positions were vacated, the authors attach an asterisk to those so designated. It's barely noticeable, as it should be.

Of the previous cases (there have been five), Villanova is the one that seems to stick with most people. It also had a name and face: Howard Porter, named most outstanding player at the Final Four as the Wildcats lost in the title game to UCLA.

Porter signed a contract with the American Basketball Association while playing at Villanova. This made him a professional, technically, and ineligible for the games that followed. Camby's dealings with agent Wesley Spears put him in the same predicament.

Even before the Camby situation developed, Calipari advocated loans be made availlable, to elite athletes, in the same way disability insurance is now. He says the jobs program passed at January's NCAA Convention is not a solution to financial concerns of college basketball players. The recent threat by the Southeastern Conference to boycott the work program suggests he is not dreaming.

Parting Shots

Jack Powers, executive director of the NIT, suggests the field for this year's preseason tournament, the Chase NIT, could be "one of our strongest." But some of that evaluation must be based on optimism that Connecticut and UNLV will use the event to establish themselves as teams to fear. The other featured entrants are Kansas, Cincinnati and Minnesota, with a dynamite second-round game possible between the Jayhawks and Rebels. ... The NIT will have a tough time avoiding the shadow of the Maui Invitational, which has defending NCAA champion Arizona, runner-up Kentucky and power-to-be Duke in its field.

DePaul fans have grown increasingly apoplectic about the slow process the school's administration has followed in replacing coach Joey Meyer. It is strange, given that ESPN announcer Digger Phelps and Depaul women's coach Doug Bruno were quickly identified as candidates, but there's no rush to make a move with recruiting evaluation beginning in July. ... Swingman Zack McCall, who was suspended last season for failing an NCAA drug test, has left Marquette.