[Cracked Sidewalks] - MU & Self-Reporting

[Pakuni]

The basketball program is MU's #1 marketing tool.

Buzz Williams is putting a quality product on the floor.

HOWEVER, we (alumni) and the school need to keep things in perspective. When we start clinging to athletics as the lifeblood of the school, we run a dangerous path where making the right choices becomes increasingly difficult.

Nailed it.

[NersEllenson]

Let's see the past 3 years - along with awesome team performance, recruiting and player development, MU also has had:

- Two sexual assault allegations with high media attention
- Bar fight with high media attention
- Vander blue altercation
- Significant number of players accepted scholarship but never making it to the team (Roseboro, Newbill, Taylor)
- Significant number of transfers (Maymon, Smith, Williams, Jones, Mbao) - yeah I know the national average
- Goofy exchanges with media (Buzz / Mclavine)
- Funny but probably disrespectful display of sportsmanship (WVU)
- Rumors of academic struggles
- Minor reported NCAA infraction



There ARE rough edges with Buzz and the program right now.   A few of these by them self are likely fine.  All of these together,- I would expect the University wanting some more control and direction setting.

Now - I would expect Larry / Pilarz to do it in a way that Buzz is agreeable to.   And if Buzz is true about "developing men not just basketball payers," I would expect Buzz to be able to adapt his ways and with behaviors & results to be more agreeable to the university.

However, if Buzz and LW / FP can't work together, yes Buzz it likely moving on when he can...

Let's see...the sexual assault ALLEGATIONS never had enough merit to have any charges pressed...and we know began consensually.  The bar fight - not instigated by MU players - but guess what - 18-22 year old men on/off college campuses get into bar fights.  The incidence of bar fights/hanging out at bars among non basketball players at MU is exponentially higher than that of basketball players.

So, Vander Blue got into an altercation...so Buzz was wrong for recruiting Vander?  Should Buzz live 24x7 with his players?  They trying to run off Bielema in Madison due to the Montee Ball mess?  If only we had Barry Alvarez as our athletic director - a guy who actually gets what it is like to be a head coach at a high major school.

As for Newbill, Roseboro, TJ Taylor - 2 of the 3 made it to campus and decided MU wasn't the place for them - so that's a rough edge on Buzz?  Really questioning the transfers of Maymon and Reggie Smith??  Erik Williams?  Jamail Jones?  Buzz is to blame because these Top 100 players either had impossible parents, or simply wanted to play rather than ride the bench?  Goofy exchange with Mac and the dance at WVU??  Wow.  Grasp for straws much?  And now the minor NCAA infraction for an assistant apparently giving away a T-shirt to a recruit.  Wow.  We really need to clean up the act of our head coach, whose former players swear by him, and how much of a positive influence he's been in their life. 

Afraid our current admin is of the self righteous ideology that you too seem to have...and self righteousness never leads to good outcomes. 

[GGGG]

No one is saying that Buzz is to blame for all of these incidents, or that there aren't legitimate reasons why they occurred, but they are negative points.  And again, I have no idea why you keep lashing out at LW when he is doing exactly what those above him WANT him to do.  Despite what many of you want, my impression is that LW is operating within the full support of FP and the BOT and isn't going anywhere. 

[Lennys Tap]

No one is saying that Buzz is to blame for all of these incidents, or that there aren't legitimate reasons why they occurred, but they are negative points.  And again, I have no idea why you keep lashing out at LW when he is doing exactly what those above him WANT him to do.  Despite what many of you want, my impression is that LW is operating within the full support of FP and the BOT and isn't going anywhere. 

Maybe you're right and he's "just following orders". That will win him support from his bosses but not necessarily from the great unwashed (alumni/fans).

[GGGG]

Well, my guess is that we will see.  If they don't get along, and one of them leaves, we will surely know who the administration has cast their lot with.

[Lennys Tap]

Well, my guess is that we will see.  If they don't get along, and one of them leaves, we will surely know who the administration has cast their lot with.

All true.

[wadesworld]

Let's see...the sexual assault ALLEGATIONS never had enough merit to have any charges pressed...and we know began consensually.  The bar fight - not instigated by MU players - but guess what - 18-22 year old men on/off college campuses get into bar fights.  The incidence of bar fights/hanging out at bars among non basketball players at MU is exponentially higher than that of basketball players.

So, Vander Blue got into an altercation...so Buzz was wrong for recruiting Vander?  Should Buzz live 24x7 with his players?  They trying to run off Bielema in Madison due to the Montee Ball mess?  If only we had Barry Alvarez as our athletic director - a guy who actually gets what it is like to be a head coach at a high major school.

As for Newbill, Roseboro, TJ Taylor - 2 of the 3 made it to campus and decided MU wasn't the place for them - so that's a rough edge on Buzz?  Really questioning the transfers of Maymon and Reggie Smith??  Erik Williams?  Jamail Jones?  Buzz is to blame because these Top 100 players either had impossible parents, or simply wanted to play rather than ride the bench?  Goofy exchange with Mac and the dance at WVU??  Wow.  Grasp for straws much?  And now the minor NCAA infraction for an assistant apparently giving away a T-shirt to a recruit.  Wow.  We really need to clean up the act of our head coach, whose former players swear by him, and how much of a positive influence he's been in their life. 

Afraid our current admin is of the self righteous ideology that you too seem to have...and self righteousness never leads to good outcomes. 

So you're OK with all of the recent issues within the basketball program?  I am a huge Buzz supporter and would hate to see him go, but to pretend that everything is squeaky clean and perfectly fine within the program is naive at best.

If a new CEO takes over a successful company and the company goes bankrupt because the people he hires don't do a good job under him it doesn't let the CEO off the hook.  If a college coach's players are continually acting inappropriately you can't just say "Well, the coach isn't the one acting out."

[jmayer1]

Let's see...the sexual assault ALLEGATIONS never had enough merit to have any charges pressed...and we know began consensually.  The bar fight - not instigated by MU players - but guess what - 18-22 year old men on/off college campuses get into bar fights.  The incidence of bar fights/hanging out at bars among non basketball players at MU is exponentially higher than that of basketball players.

So, Vander Blue got into an altercation...so Buzz was wrong for recruiting Vander?  Should Buzz live 24x7 with his players?  They trying to run off Bielema in Madison due to the Montee Ball mess?  If only we had Barry Alvarez as our athletic director - a guy who actually gets what it is like to be a head coach at a high major school.

As for Newbill, Roseboro, TJ Taylor - 2 of the 3 made it to campus and decided MU wasn't the place for them - so that's a rough edge on Buzz?  Really questioning the transfers of Maymon and Reggie Smith??  Erik Williams?  Jamail Jones?  Buzz is to blame because these Top 100 players either had impossible parents, or simply wanted to play rather than ride the bench?  Goofy exchange with Mac and the dance at WVU??  Wow.  Grasp for straws much?  And now the minor NCAA infraction for an assistant apparently giving away a T-shirt to a recruit.  Wow.  We really need to clean up the act of our head coach, whose former players swear by him, and how much of a positive influence he's been in their life. 

Afraid our current admin is of the self righteous ideology that you too seem to have...and self righteousness never leads to good outcomes. 

Alone, none of these is really cause for concern (aside from how the alleged sexual harassment was handled by the university and possibly what they players did--we'll never know the true story/exactly what happened), but collectively they give some alumni pause as they don't reflect positively on the university. Some will say that's the price of business for competing in high-major basketball, but I would sooner see that MU avoids so many negative headlines. However, given the choice between finishing 2nd in the BE/going to a sweet 16 and seeing some of these things pop up occasionally or missing the tourney but being a program with nary a negative headlines, I'd choose the former. However, I don't see why those things need to be mutually exclusive.

I am still a big Buzz fan though, but I do agree with LW's alleged statement that program's rough edges could be cleaned up a bit. GO MU!!

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

Well, my guess is that we will see.  If they don't get along, and one of them leaves, we will surely know who the administration has cast their lot with.

I do not want Buzz to leave.

However, I'm ok with the AD and Head Coach not being best friends. They have to be able to work professionally together, but a little separation of church and state helps ensure accountability.

I hope they can find a good balance.

[ATL MU Warrior]

I think it is reasonable for someone to see a disconnect between all the things Buzz preaches and the behavior/actions of some of the players on the team since he's been the head guy.  That disconnect could lead some to believe that Buzz is not really who he portrays himself to be.  

I personally don't think that disconnect exists.  The guys on the team are of an age where judgement is lacking sometimes.  We've all been there.  Combined with the problems that come with celebrity, I can see that issues such as we've seen could easily arise.  

Maybe these types of problems have existed under previous regimes (we've all heard the stories), but they are much more public now.  That's cause for concern.  

[real chili 83]

I do not want Buzz to leave.

However, I'm ok with the AD and Head Coach not being best friends. They have to be able to work professionally together, but a little separation of church and state helps ensure accountability.

I hope they can find a good balance.

Well said.

In today's world, a little accountability in college athletics is a healthy thing. 

I believe that Buzz has high standards for his players.  I also believe that he understands, and embraces that he too needs to be held accountable for the outcome of his work product.  For me, the key to Buzz and MU is how well the Domer serves Buzz as Buzz's leader.  That will be the true measure of how good of an AD LW is.

[madtownwarrior]

As stated, any of the issues by themselves are no big deal / warrant a lot less attention..  Collectively, it suggests that some order is needed in the program (or you okay with Chicago media running MU sexual assault stories regularly for the price of winning / getting to the sweet 16 or having the collective "Buzz Cut" during the summer and during the season (as our friends to the West call it)).

I think Buzz is a great coach and love his player development.  However, I would prefer the winning and player development without the negative media headlines and constant transfers.    He is quirky - the Mclavine incident was just plain weird and the WVU dance (while I loved it to stick to the WVU jag fans) probably was not in his best interest.   Quirky is good, but the world has changed since Al to the far politically correct and you never know when one of the incidents gets taken way too far (for the wrong reasons).

I really hope for the best of the program - that there is some more order to the program and that Buzz / LW can work together doing it.

Let's see...the sexual assault ALLEGATIONS never had enough merit to have any charges pressed...and we know began consensually.  The bar fight - not instigated by MU players - but guess what - 18-22 year old men on/off college campuses get into bar fights.  The incidence of bar fights/hanging out at bars among non basketball players at MU is exponentially higher than that of basketball players.

So, Vander Blue got into an altercation...so Buzz was wrong for recruiting Vander?  Should Buzz live 24x7 with his players?  They trying to run off Bielema in Madison due to the Montee Ball mess?  If only we had Barry Alvarez as our athletic director - a guy who actually gets what it is like to be a head coach at a high major school.

As for Newbill, Roseboro, TJ Taylor - 2 of the 3 made it to campus and decided MU wasn't the place for them - so that's a rough edge on Buzz?  Really questioning the transfers of Maymon and Reggie Smith??  Erik Williams?  Jamail Jones?  Buzz is to blame because these Top 100 players either had impossible parents, or simply wanted to play rather than ride the bench?  Goofy exchange with Mac and the dance at WVU??  Wow.  Grasp for straws much?  And now the minor NCAA infraction for an assistant apparently giving away a T-shirt to a recruit.  Wow.  We really need to clean up the act of our head coach, whose former players swear by him, and how much of a positive influence he's been in their life. 

Afraid our current admin is of the self righteous ideology that you too seem to have...and self righteousness never leads to good outcomes. 

[Lennys Tap]

If a new CEO takes over a successful company and the company goes bankrupt because the people he hires don't do a good job under him it doesn't let the CEO off the hook.  If a college coach's players are continually acting inappropriately you can't just say "Well, the coach isn't the one acting out."

Of course a new CEO who drives a successful company into bankrupcy will be fired. And disgraced as an utter failure. But that's not what's happened here. On the contrary, the company that Buzz took over is more successful than it's been in two generations. All signs point to even greater success (record earnings?) down the road. There have been some incidents of poor choices/bad behavior by the employees outside of the workplace. If you want to deep 6 the best CEO Marquette has seen in 35 years because of it, fine. I disagree.

[kmwtrucks]

I think the legal stuff needs to decrease in Frequency and I would be shocked if Buzz did not feel very strongly the same way.  I do not know all the details and without that cannot totally comment on them, But I would prefer that to be fewer and farther in between.  

If people are complaining about transfer's makes no sense at all.  Was EW buzz cut? No was hurt quite a bit and never really progressed to the point that he would ever be a starter. Jones was in the same boat.  They left because they were killing them selves working 40 hours a week on basketball and not playing.  TJ got homesick and the person he was closet to moved back to where he grew up.  Smith wanted to be the starting point Guard from day 1 (?) he is now at Eastern ILL I think.  

When you recruit kids that have not grown up around the program and have not been fans of the program for years when things get hard they will look either for a better place.  

If you were Jones would you stay at MU, working that hard knowing you are going at best be the 7-8 guy
in the rotation would you stay.

MU is not a blue Blood and is not a Big State school with a football team.  We are going to have to fight harder for recruits and will probably have the national Avg for transfer's. Does Buzz want this no. But its the reaility.

[Lennys Tap]

I do not want Buzz to leave.

However, I'm ok with the AD and Head Coach not being best friends. They have to be able to work professionally together, but a little separation of church and state helps ensure accountability.

I hope they can find a good balance.

Separation of church and state? Please provide some examples of success stemming from a situation in which an AD and coach are on different pages or at loggerheads. I think a spirit of co-operation/having each other's back (Cords/Crean, Alvarez/Bielima (sic), etc,) works better.

[tower912]

Of course a new CEO who drives a successful company into bankrupcy will be fired. And disgraced as an utter failure. But that's not what's happened here. On the contrary, the company that Buzz took over is more successful than it's been in two generations. All signs point to even greater success (record earnings?) down the road. There have been some incidents of poor choices/bad behavior by the employees outside of the workplace. If you want to deep 6 the best CEO Marquette has seen in 35 years because of it, fine. I disagree.

Actually, it seems that a new CEO that drives a successful company into bankruptcy gets a golden parachute on his way out.   

[Lennys Tap]

Actually, it seems that a new CEO that drives a successful company into bankruptcy gets a golden parachute on his way out.  

Or union members who drive a successful company into bankrupcy (with management as a co-conspirator) leapfrog stockholders and bondholders and are paid off by the taxpayers. We live in very strange times indeed.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

Separation of church and state? Please provide some examples of success stemming from a situation in which an AD and coach are on different pages or at loggerheads. I think a spirit of co-operation/having each other's back (Cords/Crean, Alvarez/Bielima (sic), etc,) works better.

Professionally, I want them to get along. That's important, you are correct.  

I don't want the HC & AD feuding, but I don't want the HC calling the shots either (Penn State).  

I like Buzz a lot, so my comments aren't any slight to him, but rather a philosophy that no head coach should carry absolute power. MU doesn't have that, and I feel that is good.

[Rubie Q]

Professionally, I want them to get along. That's important, you are correct.  

I don't want the HC & AD feuding, but I don't want the HC calling the shots either (Penn State).  

I like Buzz a lot, so my comments aren't any slight to him, but rather a philosophy that no head coach should carry absolute power. MU doesn't have that, and I feel that is good.

Yes, exactly. IMO, there needs to be someone in place who's not afraid to say no to Buzz. We didn't have that with Cottingham, and I think that scared the hell out of the BOT.

[Lennys Tap]

Professionally, I want them to get along. That's important, you are correct.  

I don't want the HC & AD feuding, but I don't want the HC calling the shots either (Penn State).  

I like Buzz a lot, so my comments aren't any slight to him, but rather a philosophy that no head coach should carry absolute power. MU doesn't have that, and I feel that is good.

Is that what happened at Penn State? I don't think it was a case of Paterno exercising absolute power. Rather, it was a cultural problem in which everyone (coach, AD, President, etc) decided that the reputation of the football program was more important than stopping the abuse of children.

[Rubie Q]

Is that what happened at Penn State? I don't think it was a case of Paterno exercising absolute power. Rather, it was a cultural problem in which everyone (coach, AD, President, etc) decided that the reputation of the football program was more important than stopping the abuse of children.

"After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday, I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/30/justice/penn-state-emails/index.html

Also, from an article on the PSU janitors who witnessed Sandusky assaulting a child, but failed to report it:

"The report claims one of the janitors especially feared head coach Joe Paterno. That janitor told investigators, 'I know Paterno has so much power, if he wanted to get rid of someone, I would have been gone.'"

http://cleveland.cbslocal.com/2012/07/12/freeh-report-janitors-didnt-report-abuse-feared-job-loss/

[ringout]

The basketball program is MU's #1 marketing tool.

Buzz Williams is putting a quality product on the floor.

HOWEVER, we (alumni) and the school need to keep things in perspective. When we start clinging to athletics as the lifeblood of the school, we run a dangerous path where making the right choices becomes increasingly difficult.

Amen.  I love MU Hoops, but it is not what defines MU.  It only takes small steps (many of them in MU's case) to the same type of corruption we see in SEC Football.

[The Equalizer]

Afraid our current admin is of the self righteous ideology that you too seem to have...and self righteousness never leads to good outcomes. 

As opposed to, say, YOUR self righteous ideology?

Lets face it, you have fewer facts about any of the recent issues at your disposal than do Larry Williams and/or Fr. Pilarz. Despite your lack of knowledge you've made up your mind that Buzz is right and Williams/Pilarz are wrong.

Just maybe the reason Larry Williams and Fr. Pilarz think Buzz has some rough edges is based on facts that go beyond the limited public knowledge of each of the situations.

[NersEllenson]

So you're OK with all of the recent issues within the basketball program?  I am a huge Buzz supporter and would hate to see him go, but to pretend that everything is squeaky clean and perfectly fine within the program is naive at best.

I don't expect perfect and squeaky clean in high major athletics - and if you think everything is perfectly fine and squeaky clean within high major athletics - you are naive.

I find it comical that we now have some in our fanbase/this message board who are practically sensationalizing the minor, minor events of transfers, a recruit having been given a T-Shirt by a departed assistant, a dance after the WVU game that national media/recruits largely loved, into a holy sh$t we have a major problem on our hands at MU.  The only event under Buzz's time that deserves any scrutiny would be the sexual assault allegations - yet again - Buzz can't be with his players 24x7, and the fact is no charges were pressed, it is known that one of the assaults in question began consensually between 2 people who had a previous sexual relationship.

[CTWarrior]

Goofy exchange with Mac and the dance at WVU?? 

Believe it or not, the exchange with McIlvaine is the only item on this list that makes me wonder about Buzz.  That was just very bizarre.

When you list all of those things one by one it seems bad, but I'm guessing that we're just a lot worse at keeping stuff in house than other schools are.  The sexual assault possibility is the only truly disturbing item on that list, IMO.