Arizona Basketball 2017-18'

[Russ Smith]

Doesn't matter at this point. He's done.

Maybe he'll sue them later but he needs to worry about this affecting his pro career.

per the article the 2nd testing positive is 1 year and the NCAA already declined to do a medical review which implies arizona's appeal was already denied and they appealed that denial

 

[Russ Smith]

Better question... if you heard that story coming from a player on Duke, UCLA or UNC, would you buy it?

Of course not. Trier as a freshman was a very good player but he was "big" and not very athletic, that was the biggest knock on him with the NBA he's not athletic enough. So he went out that summer, on PED's, and leaned out, and came back more athletic, and got suspended over it. But because of teh car accident which they had documented since he went to a doctor over it, they were able to claim it was an accidental ingestion because his stepfather apparently believed a drug invented for osteoporosis was a good solution to help Trier recover from a car accident?

it's preposterous. But then anybody that knows me knows with drug suspensions I always assume the player is lying because they almost always turn out to have been lying. The amount of contact high or I didn't know it was in the supplement I was taking excuses I've seen over the last 20 years or so has led me to almost always assume the guy is lying when he denies using drugs.

 

[Absolute Zero]

talk about a bad news day for UofA, holy smokes.

 

[carey]

Welp.....season over

It's starting to look that way.

I can not believe the Trier news.

Jesus, barely squeaked by Oregon State. I thought for sure we were losing that game.

 

[TJ]

Simple question do you believe his story of what happened or not?

Yes. Trier is a good dude and It’s been corroborated by way too many local and national pundits to assume otherwise. If I’m wrong, it’s one of the biggest lies ever.

 

[TJ]

It's starting to look that way.

I can not believe the Trier news.

Jesus, barely squeaked by Oregon State. I thought for sure we were losing that game.

In defense, losing one of your best players hours before tip and having to adjust on the fly isn’t ideal, especially to a team that’s only lost twice at home all year.

 

[GatorAZ]

Miller says he hopes the Trier stuff is cleared up by tomorrow. This is a guy who didn't say a word during the first suspension. Interesting.

 

[Russ Smith]

Yes. Trier is a good dude and It’s been corroborated by way too many local and national pundits to assume otherwise. If I’m wrong, it’s one of the biggest lies ever.

So give me a logical explanation for why his stepfather puts a steroid in his drink and gives it to him to help him heal from a car accident, and doesn't tell him he's doing it? That makes literally no sense, it completely defies logic that his stepfather would give him a steroid used to lean out, to help recover from a car accident.

 

[TJ]

So give me a logical explanation for why his stepfather puts a steroid in his drink and gives it to him to help him heal from a car accident, and doesn't tell him he's doing it? That makes literally no sense, it completely defies logic that his stepfather would give him a steroid used to lean out, to help recover from a car accident.

Based on your response above regarding positive tests, you have a clear bias in the situation and it really isn’t worth explaining it to you.

Obviously, the NCAA, the entity you seem to think will give Arizona the death penalty after the Book fiasco, found the explanation reasonable when it really had no incentive to do so.

 

[GatorAZ]

Not one Arizona player listed so far. Knock on wood.

 

[Russ Smith]

Based on your response above regarding positive tests, you have a clear bias in the situation and it really isn’t worth explaining it to you.

Obviously, the NCAA, the entity you seem to think will give Arizona the death penalty after the Book fiasco, found the explanation reasonable when it really had no incentive to do so.

Oh Jeez, I never said Arizona would get the death penalty, I said they'd get hit harder for playhing kids they knew might be ineligible. If you read todays story where they discuss how schools are now going to have to decide do we play this kid or not(guys like Wendell Carter, Kevin Knox, Sexton again are all named as having been paid money), in all those cases the school now has to decide should we sit them because we know they're probably ineligible. That's exactly the situation ARizona was in and they chose to play the 3 kids.

USC also has Boatwright named in the list but he's already injured, and there's been rampant speculation(even on USC boards) that Jordan McLaughlin is on a list too so they would have to decide do they sit him like they did Melton. Again that's what made arizona's reaction to this so odd to me all along, they were literally the only school that didn't sit any players even though they had clear reason to believe the players might not be eligible.

Again there's no logical reason to give a kid recovering from a car accident a steroid that's primary use as a steroid is to lean out. That's not something that makes any sense as a treatment to recover faster from a car accident. Athletes often use steroids to recover faster from injuries yes, but leaning out is NOT recovering from an injury. You have a kid who admits he lost like 12 pounds and significantly cut his body fat between his freshman and soph years, now we know he tested positive for a substance that PED users take specifically to lean out, the most obvious explanation is he took it to lean out.

The whole he's a good dude thing just shows you are a fan of the school he plays for. The kid was one of the tougher cases for the NCAA to clear out of HS. His mom had profited from youtube videos of him as a kid, the NCAA decided it was allowable. He made commercials with Melo and Durant while he was a kid the NCAA agreed he had not violated amateur status by doing so. A local neighbor had paid for him to go to private school in Seattle, during his junior year of HS the NCAA declared that neighbor to be a UW booster and ruled Trier would be ineligible if he went to UW, that's why despite being so close to Romar, he did NOT go to UW. Durant adopted him as his little brother during his rookie year in Seattle, and then Trier followed Durant to OKC and played there until he got suspended, twice, for not living with a legal guardian, he was living with his AAU coaches and it was widely assumed Durant paid for the whole thing. Then he went to Durant's old prepschool until he committed to UA and went to Findlay., Allonzo Trier is the definition of a mercenary, there was even an article on him in HS that called him the poster child for todays mercenary HS basketball system. His entire life has been preparing for him to make the NBA, it's completely plausible that at some point he decided he needed to lean out and used PED's to do it.

He took PED's, got caught, and at least for now suspended over it.

 

[Russ Smith]

Not one Arizona player listed so far. Knock on wood.

if you read the whole story it clearly says that Yahoo did not get to see the whole list, they just saw a fraction of it and what's posted is from that.

My guess is lots of schools that don't have a kid on it right now are assuming they do.

Hell even Utah did although that was kind of obvious given the stories about Dawkins and Kuzma(played for his AAU team with josh Jackson) and Kuzma saying Dawkins tried to scare his mom by faking a call from the NCAA saying Kuzma's prepschool was in NCAA trouble and Kyle might be ineligible. He was trying to get control of Kuzma to get him to play again on his AAU team. Dawkins denied the story and it sounds now like Kuzma was at least not totally honest since he's on the list of players Dawkins says he paid.

USC is the interesting one right now, Metu is on the list too and like I said rumor is another starter is as well. USC already suspended Melton, if they follow their own MO, does that mean they're going to suspend Metu and another player as well?

I don't think the NCAA would even give them a bid if they did, with arguably their 4 best players all not on the team, 3 due to suspensions one due to injury, no way the NCAA would not take that into consideration in seeding?

 

[GatorAZ]

if you read the whole story it clearly says that Yahoo did not get to see the whole list, they just saw a fraction of it and what's posted is from that.

My guess is lots of schools that don't have a kid on it right now are assuming they do.

Hell even Utah did although that was kind of obvious given the stories about Dawkins and Kuzma(played for his AAU team with josh Jackson) and Kuzma saying Dawkins tried to scare his mom by faking a call from the NCAA saying Kuzma's prepschool was in NCAA trouble and Kyle might be ineligible. He was trying to get control of Kuzma to get him to play again on his AAU team. Dawkins denied the story and it sounds now like Kuzma was at least not totally honest since he's on the list of players Dawkins says he paid.

USC is the interesting one right now, Metu is on the list too and like I said rumor is another starter is as well. USC already suspended Melton, if they follow their own MO, does that mean they're going to suspend Metu and another player as well?

I don't think the NCAA would even give them a bid if they did, with arguably their 4 best players all not on the team, 3 due to suspensions one due to injury, no way the NCAA would not take that into consideration in seeding?

It seems like a lot of this is small payments and meals. If money is going to parents of players couldn't they just pay it back? If I'm Kentucky, Duke or Michigan St I would keep playing Knox, Carter and Bridges.

 

[Lefty]

I have a feeling this will be Izzo's last year coaching at MSU.

 

[Russ Smith]

It seems like a lot of this is small payments and meals. If money is going to parents of players couldn't they just pay it back? If I'm Kentucky, Duke or Michigan St I would keep playing Knox, Carter and Bridges.

yes that's the norm, like Sexton did 1 game suspension and be back playing. the problem is it's assumed after this whole thing started that schools all required their kids to recertify and again sign a statemetn that they didn't break amateurism rules. in the past the NCAA has used that as an extra punishment, are they going to do that now with this many kids, who knows. But technically every kid on this list who took money or did anything that violates an NCAA rule, and is playing, lied about it because they signed a document stating they didn't do it knowing they did do it.

Kentucky said they're cooperating, other schools are saying the same thing but it's not clear what that means. Does cooperating mean we're watiing for the NCAA to tell us what to do? Lynn Swann last week said USC had concluded a thorough invesitation and was confident the program was clean and melton had been suspended because they found him to be probably "noncompliant'. Now today 2 more of their players are directly implicated and 3rd is rumored to be involved, presumably Swann hadn't seen this information when he said that but it gives you an idea of how "thorough" these internal investigations really are. They hired a high profile lawyer in Freeh who concludes they're clean and a week later Pete Thamel proves that 2 of their 3 best players are involved too.

Which is why any program saying we investigated and found nothing is deluding themselves.

 

[TJ]

NCAA has a mess on its hands. Not sure who looks worse today: The programs implicated, or the NCAA.

 

[Russ Smith]

Also if you read they are now quoting Mark Emmert saying anybody involved in this sort of behavior has no part of being in college basketball. a pretty strong statement, does he mean the adults, or is he including the kids named?

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

You realize I didn't say "season's over". That was TJ. I actually said I was interested to see how Miller adjusts and how Ayton handles it.

I find it funny how people can say that a coach... who continually gets a great recruiting class... but has never been to the Final Four, much less a Final, much less a title... is great.

And you say "perceived lack of Tourney Success"... is it really? maybe we just view tourney success differently. i mean, you talk about "Tourney success"... but then you bring up things that happened in the regular season. No doubt... Miller has great regular season success. But with great recruiting classes, high seeds year after year and not getting to the Final Four 4 at least ONCE in 8 YEARS is a massive a problem for me.

I won't lie... I hate his style of play. I loved the old Cats teams with incredible guard play... some of which would break my heart with back to back atrocious losses to ETSU (that team is still probably hitting threes against us) and Santa Clara. I used to pen in the Cats as my Final Winner from 1991-1995 (probably stopped right when we went on that incredible run taking down that monster Jayhawks squad on the way to beating college basketball royalty in Kansas, UNC and Kentucky for the title). And yes, there were years they royally pissed me off (losing in the Elite 8 the next year to freaking Utah)... but I still got SOME great moments AND a really fun team to watch year in year out. Miller's team give me neither. They don't play an exciting brand of ball AND they don't come up with huge post-season moments (outside of that great sweet sixteen game thrashing Duke with Derrick Williams). That Duke game was the only time I've ever seen a Miller go in as a dog and really surprise a higher seed and I've seen too many times them losing to a lower seed.

That's not a hot take. I've watched 8 years of this and they've lost me and I ain't happy about that.

I just expect more from the Cats. Sorry if that makes you bristle, but it is what it is.

You said season was a bust. Pretty much same thing as saying it's over.

Miller has a better NCAA Tournament winning % than Lute FYI. His style ain't as pretty that's for sure but the guy wins and will win at a much higher level than any potential replacements out there. He's lost 3 Elite 8 games yes, two by one basket. That's pretty tough to label a guy when the rest of his resume is pretty spotless.

It's a sports radio/Twitter hot take. I prefer looking at the big picture.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

So if you add all the hours Russ spends for free monitoring non-UCLA NCAA compliance cases and paid him say $20/hr, would he have been paid more or less than these kids?

Not to worry Russ, I'm sure if you keep pounding away at the keyboard on these obscure internet message boards I'm sure you'll be the guy to make sure these kids don't get the relative chump change everyone in the entire world would say they have earned and probably deserve.

 

[Russ Smith]

So if you add all the hours Russ spends for free monitoring non-UCLA NCAA compliance cases and paid him say $20/hr, would he have been paid more or less than these kids?

Not to worry Russ, I'm sure if you keep pounding away at the keyboard on these obscure internet message boards I'm sure you'll be the guy to make sure these kids don't get the relative chump change everyone in the entire world would say they have earned and probably deserve.

I've said repeatedly the kids should get money. What you're doing is the classic excuse when someone's favorite team gets caught breaking the rules, blame the rules, blame the NCAA, say the kids should get paid, everyone does it, and go out of your way to claim it's nothing. a few days ago you guys were predicting the case was falling part, clearly it's not.

I want to see the whole system get exposed so we move past it. let the kids go pro out of HS, stop pretending these kids are actually student athletes when they're in college, they're not. Remove the whole sham about it so the kids who want to go pro can, and the kids who want to get an education can. The system as it is now is hopelessly broken, the college kids are actually semi pros, let's admit that, pay the ABOVE the table and be honest about it.

This whole system is nuts. An aside that makes my point about how out of perspective college sports is. Wednesay on Bruinzone there was a discussion of the betting lines for the upcoming pac 12 games, adn why is the spread on the Arizona and OSU game so small it makes no sense. the next day we found out Trier is suspended, so clearly Vegas knew that when they set the betting lines. if the NCAA is so serious about not wanting links to gambling, why are they not wondering exactly how Vegas oddsmakers found out Trier was ineligible before it was public? Either someone at Arizona or someone at the NCAA must have notified them, which shows priorities here are all out of whack, they're more concerned about a betting line than the integrity of the game.

 

[Cheesebeef]

You said season was a bust. Pretty much same thing as saying it's over.

Miller has a better NCAA Tournament winning % than Lute FYI.

His style ain't as pretty that's for sure but the guy wins and will win at a much higher level than any potential replacements out there. He's lost 3 Elite 8 games yes, two by one basket. That's pretty tough to label a guy when the rest of his resume is pretty spotless.

It's a sports radio/Twitter hot take. I prefer looking at the big picture.

can you show me what I've labeled him that is so "hot take"? I think Miller's a good coach and have said so repeatedly. I don't think he's shown to be a great coach. IMO, GREAT coaches don't have all-world talent and repeatedly fail to at least get them to the Final Four while repeatedly have them lose to lower seeds which keeps them from getting there.

just because you're quick to annoit someone simply because you probably went to U of A, doesn't make my standards a "hot take". Those standards are pretty consistent across all sports... and a standard you used to agree with with-holding the greatness tag on D'Antoni when he repeatedly failed in the playoffs.

Can't believe you're this touchy over here.

 

[Mischa]

His style ain't as pretty that's for sure but the guy wins and will win at a much higher level than any potential replacements out there.

Al Davis

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Just stop.

Uh he’s 100% right.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Season isn't over.

I just find it funny how you continually discredit Miller as a coach because of a perceived lack of Tournament success then say a season is a bust (despite winning the Pac-12 and likely being a top 4 seed of course) before the Tournament has even started. I guess it's the hot take sports society we live in.

OR reflective of the fact that to begin the aeasday n they were largely regarded as the #1 or #2 team in the country and a favorite to win a championship and they stunk up the beginning of the season and now are ranked in the teens and lost their leading scorer. Hmm, from beginning to where things reside now I’d consider that a bust.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Yes. Trier is a good dude and It’s been corroborated by way too many local and national pundits to assume otherwise. If I’m wrong, it’s one of the biggest lies ever.

“...one of the biggest lies ever” - gimme a break. Even good guys end up bad guys with PEDs and drugs. Walter Davis, probably one of the greatest good guys ever . . . drug scandal.