As the articles below say, 7 of Curie's players had a GPA below 2. No word if one of them was Kansas Bound Cliff Alexander (nation's no. 3 player). This is a poor Chicago public school so, yes, go ahead and stereotype what it takes (or lack of what it takes) to get below a 2 GPA at Curie. Hint, don't confuse Curie's academic standards with Northside Prep or a large well to do Suburb school, at those place you have to work a lot harder to get a 2 GPA.
Recall what happened to Derek Rose at Simeon (STj's HS), he had grade problems that were magically changed on Simeon's computer system and someone using a fake ID took his SAT. When this came to light, Memphis (and Calipari) had to vacate its 38 win season in 2008 because Rose was Ineligible.
Their are still a lot of people mad at Alexander for the "hat stunt" at his presser to announce his school. Recall he picked up the Illinois hat smiled, put it back and picked up the Kansas hat. Many thought this was an "in your face" move by Alexander against Illinois.
Also recall that a lot of Illinois fans are still simmering about Bill Self leaving Champaign for Kansas in 2003.
Illinois faithful and Alumni number in the tens of thousands in Chicago. How many of them are motivated enough to find out if Alexander really is eligible, and if not, sit on it until that right moment to make it public to blow up Alexander, Bill Self and Kansas? Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Just a thought
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Chicago Sun-Times
February 28, 2014
Curie forfeits all wins including CPS titlehttp://www.suntimes.com/sports/25901547-452/curie-forfeits-all-wins-including-cps-title.htmlCurie, the No. 1-ranked basketball team in the state and No. 2 in the country, according to USA Today, was stripped of its 24 victories and the city championship Friday.
A Chicago Public Schools investigation revealed that seven players had been ineligible since the beginning of the season. CPS said that the players would have been eligible if the proper forms were filed with the CPS office.
“Students whose GPAs fall below 2.0 are ineligible except when they have signed and certified ISP [Independent Study Program] forms,” CPS representative Joel Hood said. “In this particular case, they did not have the ISPs on file. We believe that this is a case of the adults letting the students down.”
The players weren’t named, and CPS won’t name a city champion this season. CPS said Curie is eligible to compete in the state tournament, which begins Monday, because the Illinois High School Association and CPS have different eligibility requirements. The IHSA wouldn’t confirm that Curie would be allowed to play in the state tournament. Curie’s first game is scheduled for Tuesday.
“We are unable to make an official comment until reviewing the final report from the CPS athletic administration on the investigation,” IHSA executive director Marty Hickman said in a statement. “We hope to be in a position to do so by Monday.”
Condors coach Mike Oliver will be suspended for an amount of time to be determined by CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett.
An anonymous phone call to CPS triggered the investigation hours before Curie was scheduled to play Young for the city title Feb. 21 in a game broadcast live on ESPN3.com.
CPS officials’ initial probe uncovered enough eligibility issues to delay Curie’s arrival at Chicago State, site of the title game. The team bus left Curie several hours behind schedule, and the game began 30 minutes late. The decision to let Curie play was a practical one — the arena was full and a live broadcast crew was waiting.
The four-overtime game was an all-time classic featuring Chicago’s best big men in a generation, Young’s Jahlil Okafor and Curie’s Cliff Alexander. The highlights led the late edition of “SportsCenter.”
Rumors about the investigation floated around the city all day Saturday. On Sunday evening, CPS confirmed to the Sun-Times that an investigation was under way. The inquiry dragged on all week. For three days, CPS representatives claimed the investigation was drawing to a close, but there was no announcement until Friday evening.
“I feel bad for the kids, the school, the entire program,” Young coach Tyrone Slaughter said. “Mike [Oliver] is a good man. This is scathing.”
“I’m glad they didn’t award it to us. We lost the ballgame on the court. We didn’t want it. We would not accept it if they did award it to us because we did not win the game.”
According to CPS rules, teams are required to exchange eligibility sheets before every game. The eligibility sheet lists all of the players who are eligible to play in that game. The rule is rarely followed or enforced. CPS said that Curie’s seven ineligible players wouldn’t have appeared as eligible on any of Curie’s eligibility sheets this season.
Oliver and Slaughter both said they didn’t exchange eligibility sheets before the title game. Other prominent CPS coaches have said that the eligibility sheet exchange simply never happens once a team reaches the elite eight of the Public League playoffs, that the teams trust their opponents to only play eligible players.
“Whatever happens happens, but years from now when my son has a child, the stories we will tell will be about how Curie, the underdog, beat Young,” Crystal Robinson, the mother of Curie’s Keenan Robinson, said Wednesday. “They will always have those moments on the court.”
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Chicago Sun-Times
March 1, 2014
We know who failed at CurieBy Rick Telander
http://www.suntimes.com/sports/25906935-452/we-know-who-failed-at-curie.htmlYou want to blame the kids?
I don’t. How can anybody blame them?
Sure, center Cliff Alexander may look like a man and play basketball like a man. At 6-9, 240, he’s bigger than almost any man anywhere.
But he’s 18, a senior at Curie High School, and last time anybody looked, Alexander doesn’t do the paperwork for his school, his basketball team or his coach, Mike Oliver. Nor does he set the Chicago Public Schools eligibility rules, grade-point requirements, classroom schedules or tournament matchups.
So let’s not blame him or any of the Curie players who are now part of one of the most embarrassing moments in CPS boys basketball history. And that’s saying something, since the city’s hardwoods have seen some pitiful messes through the years.
After playing perhaps the most memorable and thrilling game in Chicago high school championship history, squeaking out a quadruple-overtime, 69-66 win over Whitney Young on Feb. 21, Curie got to celebrate for just one week before the roof caved in. On Friday, CPS authorities stripped Curie of the crown — the school’s first city title in history — and took away all 24 of the team’s wins this season.
A CPS investigation, which came after administrators received an anonymous phone call just before the title game, showed Curie had been playing with seven ineligible players all year.
Now, eligibility is a weird thing in the CPS, where players seem to come and go depending on which coach or AAU mentor gets their ear and promises great things at this or that school. But if you have below a 2.0 GPA, you’re not supposed to be able to play sports unless — and this is a great unless — you have joined the Independent Study Program and have signed notices stating as much.
Those notices are supposed to be exchanged by both coaches before each game, but Curie’s Oliver apparently never had any or had exchanged any this entire season.
Hmm. Wonder why.
At any rate, a thrilling sports moment — with No. 2 nationally ranked Curie and Kansas-bound Alexander taking on a powerhouse Young team led by Duke-bound center Jahlil Okafor — became just another ugly zit on CPS’s pockmarked hoops face. That the championship game even went off is sad, showing that the powers-that-be care more about entertainment and showdowns than education or rules. Of course, hoops junkie Mayor Rahm Emanuel was in the large crowd at Chicago State’s Jacoby Dickens Center, and ESPN3 cameras were set up, and who can let such titans down?
Now, unbelievably, the Illinois High School Association, which determines the rules for the state tournament, may allow Curie —which has no wins, remember, and as of a day ago had seven ineligible players — to play in the tourney. It starts Monday.
It’s all nuts. And, as noted, sad.
Mostly that’s what it is.
Chicago’s public schools are wracked by the violence in neighborhoods around them, the constant cutting of funds, the anger of teachers who feel overburdened and underloved, parents who often feel uninvolved or helpless and statistics that show the future failure of male students is almost guaranteed.
Some of the worst blemishes of the past — perhaps starting with the killing of Simeon superstar Ben Wilson in 1984 and continuing through the depressing tales of King’s Leon Smith and even Eddy Curry from Harvey’s Thornwood High School — seem to add to the sense of depression that follows too many on-court displays of grace and magic.
Remember the student shot to death in the parking lot after last year’s Simeon-Morgan Park game? Remember the brawl that broke out between the players as the game ended? Simeon superstar Jabari Parker was there.
Remember how our beloved Bulls guard Derrick Rose had his grades changed via computer while at Simeon? How his dubious college test scores eventually got Memphis’ second-place finish in the 2008 NCAA tourney and all 38 wins that season thrown out?
Education. It would be easy to blame the public school kids for their own failings in that regard.
But those kids go to school because they have to. It’s the adults who teach them all the fine lessons.
