The hits on football do go beyond what’s on the ESPN crawl. Southern Cal and Reggie Bush cannot be involved again. Ever. No celebration of the Heisman Trophy, no bringing out the ball before the game, no nothing. For those of you keeping score, one Trojan running back allegedly committed double murder, making him persona non grata on campus, and another committed violations so egregiously that the college athletics’ governing body banned him from his alma mater.

What Bush did, and who he did it with, is simply incredible. He accepted about $30,000 cash from an agent who, with his partner, got together with Bush and Bush’s parents. The agents provided the family with a rent-free house in a nice neighborhood, put up most of the money for a $19,000 used 1996 Chevrolet Impala SS, and tricked it out. Additionally, there were thousands of dollars worth of loans, hotel rooms, plane tickets and other such things given to Bush. This is old-school, Auburn-style violations. And when Bush tried to back out of signing on with these guys, they allegedly employed the intimidating services of none other than Suge Knight. Actor/comedian Faizon Love got mixed up in it. It’s really quite a tale.

With all the actors and agents hanging around the players, the NCAA stepped in and banned that, too. College football’s version of “Showtime” got put in front of a firing squad and dispatched. Tacked on is the vacating of all wins from the 2005 Orange Bowl through the following 2005 regular season. All of Bush’s Heisman numbers are off the books. However, it looks like while Bush may be able to keep the trophy, the national championship is up in the air.

The NCAA doesn’t have control over the Bowl Championship Series. But the way talk has come down from the BCS, when it officially meets they may well vacate the 2004 national championship. If the guys are smart, there won’t be a BCS champion that year. Oklahoma backed into the game and was destroyed. Auburn went undefeated but didn’t get invited. The clusterfuck that would open up with awarding the championship to either of these two teams is so migraine-inducing that standing pat with no winner would be the preferred path.

As for basketball, screw it. O.J. Mayo spent one year on campus, there were shady things and we don’t particularly care about college basketball, especially as it involves the Pac-10. The NCAA more or less agreed with the school’s self-imposed penalties.

Which brings us to women’s tennis. Who saw this one coming? An international player made unauthorized long-distance calls over about three years, costing the university more than $7,000. Southern Cal vacated its own wins between November 2006 to May 2009. A girl gets homesick and everybody on the team has nothing official to look back on for their time on the court.

One question raised from all of this, or more like an observation, is that the principals basically got away with it. Sure, Bush can’t be officially involved with the university, but that isn’t stopping him from making bank with the New Orleans Saints, living it up and nailing hot pieces of tail from coast to coast. Former head coach Pete Carroll talks total shit from his new post with the Seattle Seahawks, jumping off the ship like so many rats and then has the gall to say he had no idea what was going on and the NCAA exaggerated. Je-sus. But they basically get away clean. If there’s any justice, athletics director Mike Garrett will be shit-canned shortly. He, of some massive swinging balls of brass, said the NCAA came down on Southern Cal more or less because of jealousy. Yeah, Mike. Everyone wishes they went to a private school in Compton. THAT’s why three of your athletic programs got hit hard after a four-year investigation.

What Carroll and Garrett don’t seem to realize is 1) Southern Cal was actually involved in this and deserved the hammer and 2) it was the Trojans’ turn in the clink. Alabama football didn’t receive its first probation until 1995. For a while, it looked like the NCAA was treating traditional powers like NBA referees do with star players. That ended in the ’90s. It shouldn’t be a mistake that Notre Dame, the other pristine football power, started tanking again about that same time.

Granted, this is speculation, but it would seem to us that former coach Lou Holtz put the kibosh on whatever might have been going on that was against the rules, seeing how the Tide got its ass spanked. So, the Irish started losing. They still haven’t fully recovered (eg. a run of great seasons) from what happened in the mid-’90s. Miami was known as straight-up criminals for years before having to endure some mediocre seasons and turn that around.

So, suck it up, Southern Cal. We know y’all are — by definition — in SoCal, but quit being such douchebags and deal with your time in the wilderness. It takes a few years to get back in saddle. You’re probably going to lose a few more to UCLA and Stanford and whomever else. And part of that may just be because you hired Kiffykins.

It is a little hard for us to care about this year’s tournament, since Alabama, South Carolina, UAB and VCU are all not dancing this year. It’s truly a down year. In 2007, we were in a pub in Richmond (Penny Lane, what what!) and saw VCU take down Duke. That was great. And in 2004 both Alabama and UAB made it to the Sweet Sixteen. But such years are few and far between. So here we are, picking a bracket and not really giving a damn, except to not want to see a ton of Big East or Big XII teams going deep.

As of right now, one of our Final Four picks, Vanderbilt, just fucking blew it when Murray State hit a jumper at the buzzer. So, behold, the worst bracket ever.

This one is about Jack Easterby, head of the USC Fellowship of Christian Athletes and an advisor to the Gamecock men’s basketball team. It, eh, it ain’t bad. Check in on Page 22.

Unfortunately, not everything we talked to Easterby about could be in our story. It wasn’t about the content — Easterby seems to us like a really good guy who works hard to make sure the players develop their potential not just as players, but as people. There’s just not enough space sometimes.

We were interested in his opinion of former Carolina player Mike Boynton, the leader of the 2003-2004 team that was the last to make it to the Big Dance. Boynton never scored that much during the regular season, but was obviously the most valuable player because of his leadership. During the SEC Tournament, Boynton regularly led the team in scoring, because he had to. There was also the matter of Tré Kelley, who did an amazing job as a guard for the Gamecocks.

Talking about Boynton, who is now an assistant coach for the team, Easterby said:

Mike was almost born to coach.

[...]

That’s what’s so impressive to me about Mike Boynton. He just knows what kids need. He’s not trying to manipulate or do anything. He knows exactly what they need, when they need it, how they need it. He stays real patient.

[...]

Mike Boynton is truly going to be a great head coach very soon. He’s maybe a year or so, or even less, away from being a tremendous head coach. More so, just being a great people person.

As for Kelley, he’s playing ball in China these days. But, when he was still in Columbia, Easterby helped him out. You see, Kelley was a long way from his home in D.C. And that’s not the problem. Nineteen years ago, his uncle died in a murder related to drugs, and his aunt died in a drug overdose. Five years later, his mother was murdered by the man she had become involved with after separating from Kelley’s father.

About the situation, he said to a sports and faith Web site, “I saw a lot of negativity around me with friends. Once I grew up, I saw my friends go in other directions that wouldn’t make me a good person, that wouldn’t make me a successful person. At age 11, basketball was beginning to be what I did best. I met a lot of people who really helped me get along. They didn’t help me get over it — I’ll probably never get over it — but they helped me move in the right direction.”

At the time, Kelley’s grandmother stepped in and provided him with a safe home and the love and support he needed. He was still dealing with his problems when after his freshman year with the Gamecocks, Kelley went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic that changed his life.

While his time in the NBA didn’t go as expected, he’s doing some amazing things in the Chinese Basketball Association.

“I talked to him this morning,” Easterby said of Kelley on Wednesday. “It’s a 13-hour time difference, so it’s a little different. Tré’s been one of my projects that I’ve been incredibly proud of. Because, he is really dedicated to the Lord. Tré is an interesting situation. His home life was really poor growing up, and he’s really overcome a lot of great things. He is a really, really strong Christian guy. He’s playing over there, actually, against Stephon Marbury the other night. He had 36 points, so he’s doing well. There’s some really good things going for Tré, and I’m excited about watching him grow and see him continue – he hit 53 on Wednesday, so he’s getting it done over there.”

There’s a lot of stories out there about the corruptive influence of Division I athletics, but it’s good to know that it doesn’t have to be this way, and that people like Easterby, Boynton and Kelley are providing good examples to USC.

After that, Kelley made his way to a short stint in the NBA. And now, surprise, he’s showing up former New York Knick Stephon Marbury in China.

Marbury was outplayed by his counterpart, Tre Kelley, who finished with 34 points on 12-for-19 shooting. On an identical play with less than 30 seconds to go, Kelley would use Simmons’s screen to drive past Marbury for a layup that put Dongguan ahead 100-99. After his team’s loss, Marbury wrote on his Chinese Twitter-like site: “im sorry about the game last night. i wish we would have won for you guys. i will get better every game, i promise.”

Hey, it’s much better than hearing about Ro Howell beating up some soccer player in Italy.

These guys were hot-boxing it when the driver decided not to obey the speed limit. After being pulled over, the cop smelled weed from the car. It all went to shit from that point.

The four were riding in a car driven by [Cameron] Tatum that police stopped for speeding. Police smelled marijuana in the car.

[Tyler] Smith, voted the SEC’s preseason Player of the Year in November 2008, was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and possession of a firearm with an altered serial number (which is a felony).

[Brian] Williams faces the same charges as well as possession of marijuana.

Tatum is charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and having an open container of alcohol.

[Melvin] Goins is charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and possession of marijuana.

The funny thing is, two players have already been dismissed from the squad for participating in an armed robbery. Miami’s “Thug U” football team has nothing on these fools from East Tennessee.

Three SEC squads managed to make the list, though few people outside the mid-South (i.e. Kentucky and Tennessee) are really going to give too much of a damn unless their team goes on a run and actually does well, like the 2003-04 Carolina team that had been picked to finish last in the SEC East. Kentucky lands at No. 5, Tennessee at No. 11 and Mississippi State at No. 19.

Several teams landed in the “also receiving votes” category, including Vanderbilt, Florida, Ole Miss and Carolina. Obviously, the voters have absolutely no faith in the SEC West. It’ll be interesting if Alabama, LSU, Auburn or Arkansas do anything interesting and buck the conventional wisdom. The only SEC East team that didn’t receive a vote was Georgia, which probably reflects the decline in the program since Tubby Smith left years ago.

We were rather surprised when the College of Charleston beat South Carolina‘s men’s basketball team by two points in front of a crowd topping the staggering amount of 5,000 last November. Yeah, jokes. Perhaps we just think that’s funny because our step-dad went to CofC and our mom went to mid-major UAB, and it’s nice when a mid-major owns a team like USC.

Maybe it’s a chance for redemption, but the Gamecocks are going back to Charleston early this season with new head coach Darrin Horn. Like the previously-mentioned Old Spice Classic, this one is run by ESPN (the WWL claims your soul) and will have some top teams. Carolina opens with LaSalle, and if the War Chickens win that one, they’ll take on the victor of the South Florida/Davidson contest. Also in the tourney are Tulane, Miami, UNC-Wilmington and Penn State.

Horn did a fabulous job at Western Kentucky, and ostensibly he has a better chance at talent in Columbia, but we’ll be able to see just how good he is pretty soon.

The Alabama men’s basketball team will give new coach (and former VCU skipper) Anthony Grant a good tip-off, the Old Spice Classic. The pre-conference play tournament is bringing in a number of big-name teams, including Florida State, Marquette, Iona, Baylor, Michigan, Creighton and Xavier.

The Crimson Tide will play Baylor in the first game, and the winner of that one will face the winner of Florida State/Iona. Orlando will no doubt be a place of great college basketball, with the winner of that game going into a match-up with the victor of Marquette/Xavier and Michigan/Creighton.

Looks like Grant will have his hands full.