March Badness: Scandals defined the year in college hoops

The arrest of Alabama basketball player Darius Miles (pictured) on capital murder charges related to the shooting death of 23-year-old Jamea Harris was the most shocking development of this college basketball season and it isn’t going away anytime soon. Following a 106-66 win over LSU, Miles, a forward for the Crimson Tide, and his childhood friend, Michael Lynn Davis, allegedly confronted Harris and her boyfriend on the street outside of a local bar after Harris reportedly refused to talk to him. Davis allegedly sprayed their Jeep with bullets, killing Harris. Miles was charged with aiding and abetting for supplying the gun. In a statement to ESPN, Davis’ attorney said: “We are going to vigorously defend this case and defend my client’s right to protect himself when someone points a gun at him and shoots him.” Miles’ attorney questioned the case being deemed as capital murder.

According to the victim’s mother, DeCarla Heard, Harris and her friend turned down the men’s advances. If that grotesque incident wasn’t enough for Alabama to hit a pause on the season, detectives disclosed details during a pretrial hearing linking Brandon Miller (pictured), a presumptive top-five pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, to the transportation of the weapon to the crime scene. Miller’s attorney has said Miller was unaware that Miles’ gun was in his backseat. Alabama basketball’s attempt to purge themselves of connection to Harris’ alleged killers dissipated once Miller’s involvement was made public.

Nate Oats’ insensitive remarks and Miller’s ill-advised continuation of a pat down during player introductions have destroyed any goodwill remaining towards this team outside of Tuscaloosa.

Chris Beard and his alma mater were a match made in heaven. Between the season tip-off and early January, the Texas Longhorns were stitched into the top 10 of almost every legitimate Top 25 poll. Beard was restoring their national relevance, and the Longhorns were on top of the world — until Beard was arrested on felony domestic violence charges in late December.

Beard allegedly bit and choked his fiancée, Randi Trew, in an attack so brutal that it left her with several bruises (Beard has said he was acting in self-defense). Longhorns Athletic Director Chris Del Conte axed Beard days later, then promoted Rodney Terry to the interim chair. Trew later recanted her story saying she initiated a physical struggle, a common reflex for victims of domestic violence for a variety of reasons, and on Feb. 15, the Travis County DA dropped all charges against Beard.

A month later, Ole Miss couldn’t contain their unscrupulous desire to win at all costs, threw decency aside and swooped in to make Beard their next head coach.

On Tuesday night, Coppin State basketball coach Juan Dixon was fired by the university. In his wake, he left behind a 48-128 record of misery in six seasons at the helm. However, the losing record was only the beginning. The final nail in Dixon’s coffin was a sordid affair involving a member of his staff, a former player, a catfish and a lawsuit.

According to a lawsuit filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court, during his first semester in the fall of 2018, Coppin State player Ibn Williams was catfished by a woman on social media who expressed romantic interest in the then-freshmen. According to the complaint filed by Williams’ attorney, in 2019, teammate Lucian Brownlee told Williams that he too had exchanged sexual content with Williams’ blackmailer. The complaint alleges that soon after, the “woman” threatened to release racy photos unless he had sex with Brownlee.

The complaint claims that Williams refused, but in the fall, his blackmailer demanded he record them engaging in sexual acts with Brownlee. According to the suit, Williams (pictured) spent the entire 2018-19 basketball season trying to appease the woman to prevent this information from getting out. In 2020, the suit alleges that the woman renewed the blackmail demands, however, when Williams stopped replying, the info was released to members of the basketball team and the public. The suit alleges that at some point, Williams discovered that the woman in question was his former teammate, Brownlee, who had since joined Dixon’s staff as director of Player Development and Basketball Operations.

According to Williams’ complaint, the day after Brownlee made the material public, he met with Dixon at practice, where “Dixon admitted that Lucien [sic] Brownlee was mentally ill or otherwise emotionally imbalanced and that his history was known to the coach.” Williams’ attorney, Daniel “Donny” Epstein was able to build a case despite the anonymous blackmailer claiming to be a third party. “Our strong belief is that Lucian [himself] was the catfisher,” Epstein said. However, in an email to the Baltimore Banner, Coppin State’s director of communications, Robyne McCullough said the university will not comment on pending litigation.

New Mexico State double-dipped in scandals this year. Does anyone even remember when forward Mike Peake was lured to the New Mexico campus for a hookup that turned out to be retaliation for a brawl that occurred two months earlier at a football game between the two schools, and then shot and killed one of his assailants? Imagine fighting at a college football game between a team headed for a bowl game sponsored by a bowling alley and a 2-10 program. Don’t ask which is which. It’s irrelevant and that’s the point.

The shooting that rocked the basketball program occurred prior to a Nov. 19 matchup against UNM and UNSM. The harrowing shooting was even captured by surveillance. In it, Peake is seen being assaulted with a baseball bat, attempts to flee, and then fires back at 19-year-old Brandon Travis, who was also pulling out his Glock. Travis was struck by a bullet and died.

As the NMSU team bus left NMSU’s campus, police caught up with them seeking to interview Peake and recover the firearm leading to a tense encounter in which coaches declined to allow them to interview players without an attorney present.

The teen girl who aided in Peake’s attack was charged with aggravated battery and conspiracy while the other men were charged with aggravated battery. Peake was never charged, but was suspended indefinitely while the incident was under investigation. It was later revealed that three players arrived on the scene later on to assist Peake and his gun was handed over to authorities 12 hours later by an assistant coach. Investigators later served warrants at the NMSU basketball facility.

Unbelievably, this was muted by what happened later that season at New Mexico State.

You can get a whole Shonda Rhimes special out of head coach Greg Heiar’s first year in charge of New Mexico State’s basketball program. It would also be short-lived. Before the season began, assistant coach Edmond Pryor was arrested and charged with forgery (Pryor has claimed he’s innocent of the charges). Three months after the aforementioned shooting at UNM, New Mexico State was embroiled in another scandal that cost Heiar his job.

According to a police report, on Feb. 6 three unnamed players held another teammate down, “removed his clothing exposing his buttocks, began to slap his (buttocks),” and described how they also touched his scrotum. The incident prompted the player to come forward, but also was merely one of many sexual assaults involving physical and sexual touching that he had been subjected to in locker rooms and road trips since the school year began.

In response to the details of this ongoing hazing within the locker room, Heiar was fired for cause and the season was immediately canceled. It was a steep fall from grace for the Aggies’ program, whose previous head coach Chris Jans departed for Mississippi State after they toppled UConn in the 2022 NCAA Tournament.

Louisville’s first 2022-23 season began with some good news, as the NCAA declined to dole out a postseason ban for the Cardinals in relation to pay-for-play infractions dating back to 2017. Rick Pitino was fired after details of the bribery scheme involving an Adidas executive, Merl Code Jr, conspiring to pay $100,000 to five-star recruit Bruce Bowen’s family were revealed. However, the Independent Accountability Resolution Process ruled that Pitino was unaware of all the payments. The coach was also implicated by Merl Code in his memoir, Black Market: An Insider’s Journey Into the High-Stakes World of College Basketball” — Pitino continued to deny any knowledge of improper payments — but the accusations emerged outside the NCAA’s statute of limitations.

In effect, the NCAA’s dirty work has already been done for them. Louisville has been radioactive on the recruiting trail in recent years due to the lingering threat of a ban and this season the Cardinals endured a calamitous 4-28 season.

Conversely, Pitino is back in the NCAA Tournament and appears to be the frontrunner for the St. John’s vacancy.