College Basketball's Biggest Coaching Scandals

Mike DeCourcy - SportingNews.com

There was a time when any college basketball coach would have been honored to earn a mention in the company of Jim Harrick, Jim O'Brien or Kelvin Sampson -- accomplished men with NCAA Final Four appearances on their resumes.

This is not one of those times.

Now, they're gathered on the list of most damaging scandals involving hoops coaches this decade. Given Rick Pitino's headline-grabbing episode last week, it seemed an appropriate time to take a stroll through the game's seamier side.

Even though Pitino couldn't crack the list:

1. Baylor and Dave Bliss, summer 2003

It began when center Patrick Dennehy disappeared and later was found dead, with a bullet in his skull. Evidence soon pointed at Baylor forward Carlton Dotson, who eventually pleaded guilty to killing Dennehy.

When Dennehy's death became a national story, informers popped up alleging NCAA rules violations had occurred under Bliss nearly 20 years earlier at SMU -- and some things had happened at Baylor, as well. It seemed a bit twisted -- who cared about NCAA rules when a young man's life had ended?

It mattered to Bliss. An assistant coach taped a conversation in which Bliss told those gathered in his office to suggest Dennehy had been dealing drugs. Why? To cover for rules violations.

"At Baylor, I didn't have any external pressures," Bliss said this summer at a Baptist church in Texas, according to AP. "They took me because they were glad I wanted to coach there. So I can't blame it on anyone else."

2. _______________

This space is intentionally left blank -- it's not fair to rank anyone close to the Baylor deal.

3. St. Bonaventure and Jan van Breda Kolff, 2003

VBK always has maintained his innocence about what happened at Bonaventure. He told the Associated Press last winter: "The NCAA investigated ... and gave me a stack of papers exonerating me. I also got a good resolution from St. Bonaventure. I was stigmatized and tarnished by it, but I was not the issue or the problem."

While he was coaching the Bonnies, though, a basketball player was allowed to transfer from junior college without completing the necessary academic requirements. That revelation caused the Atlantic 10 to rule the team ineligible for its tournament, which in turn led to the team quitting on the season. That doesn't happen a lot.

4. Georgia and Jim Harrick, 2003

The allegation that Harrick's son, Georgia assistant Jim Harrick Jr., had been teaching what amounted to a sham PE course embarrassed the Bulldogs and effectively ended Harrick's college coaching career, which included impressive work at Pepperdine, UCLA (where he won the 1995 NCAA title) and Rhode Island.

5. St. John's and Mike Jarvis, 2003

When Jarvis was let go in December of the 2003-04 season, not all of the damage from his era had been tallied. It was after he was gone that center Abe Keita alleged a member of Jarvis' staff had paid him a monthly stipend. After Jarvis was gone, three of his former recruits were suspended following an incident in which they were falsely accused of rape -- by a woman they'd promised to pay for sex.

6. Missouri & Quin Snyder, 2004

The many travails of point guard Ricky Clemons are too involved to list in such a short space, but Snyder's program never recovered from his recruitment.

7. USC and Tim Floyd, 2009

It still doesn't add up that Floyd personally would make a cash payment to the handler of a recruit -- even one as gifted as O.J. Mayo. But Floyd resigned without public comment a couple months after he'd been accused. The Trojans still face serious repercussions from the charges that Mayo received improper benefits from an agent's representative while playing for USC.

8. Iowa State and Larry Eustachy, 2003

Eustachy resigned as Cyclones head coach in the spring, after pictures were published that showed him kissing young women and drinking alcohol at a college party after his team lost a game to Missouri that winter.

9. Ohio State & Jim O'Brien, 2004

O'Brien admitted to his boss, AD Andy Geiger, he'd made a $6,000 payment for the family of a European recruit who never played for the Buckeyes. Later allegations against the program included academic fraud and improper benefits for another European recruit who was part of the Buckeyes' 1999 Final Four team. O'Brien was fired directly after admitting the payment, but successfully sued to recover the remainder of his contract.

10. Indiana and Kelvin Sampson, 2008

If you made it to the bottom of this list, you can't still believe a handful of three-way phone calls were a big deal, can you?

Mike DeCourcy is a writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at decourcy@sportingnews.com

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