We’re not big on negativity around here, and besides, there was a lot more to love than to hate in men’s college basketball in 2022. So we’re keeping the worst-of list significantly shorter than our best-of. That’s not to say there haven’t been a few awful things this year.
Here are five that furrowed our brow, with one caveat: To avoid conflating on-court issues with matters of personal conduct, you won’t find any stories of moral turpitude, as the coaching contracts like to call it, except for the basketball-related kind.
Juwan Howard did what?
Slapped a guy. Opposing assistant coach, no less. Right in the face. In the handshake line. After Michigan-Wisconsin in February. Yep, that really happened, as unthinkable as it was right up until Howard took that swing because of a late timeout he didn’t like. It was ugly, and considering a pattern of tempers lost, Howard certainly could’ve been fired. He wasn’t. Suspended five games instead. And that led to some happier things, which we’d like to think included important introspection and personal growth by Howard.
But for sure, it gave us former Saint Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli leading the Wolverines in his absence to wins over Michigan State and Ohio State and into the NCAA Tournament, where Howard returned to earn a measure of redemption. He coached Michigan to the Sweet 16 as an 11-seed, via an upset of 3-seed Tennessee. That time in the handshake line, Howard wrapped emotional Vols star Kennedy Chandler in a hug and told him to keep his head up. Sometimes a bad thing leads to a good thing.
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Juwan Howard can go one of two ways from here
Assistants take the fall
Look, we’re thrilled to see that the schools and head coaches ensnared by the FBI probe into college basketball corruption more than five years ago are finally getting their non-punishments from the NCAA. It’s about time some kind of verdict came down. And in an era where it’s legal for players to be compensated through name, image and likeness deals, we’re actually good with everyone getting a slap on the wrist (if that). Just two problems: One, it never should’ve taken this long. Second, and most importantly, not everyone got off. There’s something not quite right about the assistant coaches getting prison time and long show-cause penalties, effectively killing their careers, while their former bosses and employers skate.
The latest example is former Arizona coach Sean Miller, who found a soft landing at Xavier and found out earlier this month he’ll avoid all NCAA sanctions. His former assistant, Book Richardson, went to prison and then received a 10-year show cause from the NCAA. Fellow former assistant Mark Phelps got a two-year show cause. Miller got a six-year, multi-million dollar deal from another school that wants to just win, baby.
Not for nothing: Every coach arrested in the FBI sting operation in 2017 was a Black assistant: Tony Bland (USC), Lamont Evans (Oklahoma State), Chuck Person (Auburn) and Richardson. Their bosses are all still gainfully employed as Division I head coaches. None of the schools has been hit with significant sanctions. Great first question for the new NCAA president: How does that sit with you?
Is Louisville the worst high major?
Now, to the actual basketball, and these next few paragraphs might be NSFW. Considering all that the Cardinals had been through, their proud program dragged through the mud by a never-ending series of scandals, only to suffer a miserable last season of Chris Mack — who gave up his longtime friend and assistant to the feds for extortion! — hiring Kenny Payne felt like the end of a nightmare. The beginning of something good for a change. He’s a beloved alum, won a national title as a player at U of L, and came with the added bonus that the Cards were taking John Calipari’s ace recruiter for years at Kentucky.
NBA players swear by Payne. Five-star recruits flock to him. Oh, and he was going to hire former teammate Milt Wagner, grandfather of No. 1 overall 2023 recruit DJ Wagner? Happy days are here again.
Welp. DJ Wagner signed with Kentucky. Most of Louisville’s other top targets signed with someone else too. Zero five-stars chose the Cards, who also largely struck out in the transfer portal. The one certainty (we thought) about Payne, that he would get talent, has so far failed to materialize. And then the games started, and it got worse. Much worse. Louisville lost an exhibition game to a bad Division II team. Then the regular-season opener to Bellarmine. Then to Wright State. Appalachian State. Arkansas, Texas Tech and Cincinnati by a combined 77 points in Maui. After a 22-point loss to 1-9 Florida State, Payne was 0-9 as a head coach.
At last, came a glimmer of hope (and victory) against Western Kentucky in Game 10, but it still looks like this is going to be a very, very long season for the Cardinals. Incredibly, U of L leadership has to grapple with the same question Georgetown must answer about Patrick Ewing: How long do you let a favorite son flounder? In the Hoyas’ case:
Ewing has had long enough
He’s had just one winning record in five years and is 5-8 to start Year 6. This after a genuinely abysmal 6-25 season in 2021-22. Ewing’s record is 73-92, and he’s never won an NCAA Tournament game. He did win the 2021 Big East tournament, which the athletic director referenced as a “testament to his leadership” in a surprising statement of support late last season. “This gives us confidence that he can strengthen our program going forward,” the statement continued. But he hasn’t.
Georgetown this season has lost to Loyola Marymount (by 18), American and a .500 South Carolina squad that is the SEC’s worst by a wide margin. Adding insult to incompetence, the Hoyas were involved in one of the ugliest sequences in recent memory during a 12-point loss to Northwestern. It’s time.
— Will Raftery (@WillRaftery22) November 16, 2022
But California is actually the worst
After beating WKU, Louisville climbed all the way to 282nd among Division I teams in Bart Torvik’s stat-based ratings. The Cal Bears, now 1-12 after finally winning its first game of the season Wednesday, are 303rd. The Mark Fox Experience is not going great.
To be fair, Cal has at least played a solid schedule and looked semi-competitive in a few games. The Bears hung around with Kansas State, TCU, Clemson, USC and Arizona. (They still lost each of those games by at least eight points.) But there’s also the double-digit loss to UC Davis, the losses to 5-7 UC San Diego and 7-6 Texas State (which just lost to … Mary Hardin-Baylor). Eastern Washington, with seven losses and ranked 236th, beat Cal. So did Butler, by 24.
It’s unclear how Fox, who made the NCAA Tournament just twice in nine years at Georgia, is still employed with a 36-70 record at Cal. But surely he won’t be much longer.
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(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photo: Andy Lyons, John Fisher / Getty Images)
