There's no such thing as bad press?

Lately, it's not been good to be a Cyclone. Just as the embarrassment of the Larry Eustachy debacle three years ago was finally starting to fade, the Iowa State men's basketball team makes national headlines, and yet again for nothing to be proud of. It has been a turbulent couple of weeks for the Cyclone Nation. March 8th sophomore guard Tasheed Carr announced he intended to transfer to another school. The very next day we blew our only shot at achieving post season play by losing to Oklahoma State. We didn't even make it into the NIT... the NIT! Almost every team with a winning record who isn't invited to the big dance is invited to the NIT, but not ISU. And just when you thought it could get any worse to be a Cyclone, March 15th happened. First, star, junior guards Curtis Stinson and Will Blalock announced that they would be entering the NBA draft this year. And before we could even swallow, CBS SportLine's Gregg Doyel cried scandal. I don't know who this "journalist" thinks he is, but that article isn't journalism. He obviously doesn't have all the facts, like that Coach Morgan knew Anthony Davis while he was still at Long Beach St. and had tried to recruit Davis then, and that Davis followed him to ISU. The worst part is he just won't stop. But I agree that there's something fishy going on with this D1 Scheduling business. There's a lot of money going in, but not a lot going out. And the whole thing with Mike Miller being the head coach of LACC and a lot of these teams with contracts with D1 also having former LACC players on their rosters also doesn't smell good. But to make an already bad situation even worse Coach Morgan was called into a meeting with athletic director Jamie Pollard and president Gregory Geoffroy late last night and was informed that he and his coaching staff were all fired.

The timing in all of this is very convenient. Stinson and Blalock's announcement coming just before the D1 Scheduling story broke makes it look like someone tipped them off and told them to get out while the getting was still good. Especially after an entire season of saying they would stay for their senior year. Morgan et al. being fired a day after scandal broke, even though the reasons have nothing to do with it. Personally, I'm not sad to see him go. He's not a great coach, and didn't hone the talent on team this year. It was evident throughout the season with too many last minute losses that should have been wins. But again, the timing is all off, and makes Iowa State look really bad, and that maybe Mr. Doyel is right in his implications that ISU is at the center of the whole D1 Scheduling scam. I have a hard time believing it, but the way things look right now, it doesn't look good, and we're looking more than a little guilty. Only time and a NCAA investigation will tell.

Lesson for the week: Beware the Ides of March