Bearing down on the season

I’ll be honest: I didn’t truly appreciate the grind of the media day tours until this month.

In the last nine days, I’ve been to Sioux Falls, three different resorts in Las Vegas, Brooklyn and Storrs with a virtual CAA visit coming TODAY (starts at 9 am ET, click here) and trips to MSG and Asheville coming next week.

There are 362 teams in college basketball, and by the time the World Series pairing is finalized, I’ll have sat with a quarter of them in a 16-day span.

No one is readier for the college basketball season to start than this guy.

Let's get to the news!

1. Mike Boynton deserves an apology

The NCAA screwed Mike Boynton and Oklahoma State.

As I said at the time, the punishment that the Cowboys received for their violations were overkill. Oklahoma State was the only school involved in the FBI scandal that fully cooperated with the NCAA during the process. It also was the only school to receive a postseason ban, which is a great precedent to set.

And now, Boynton is asking for nothing more than the powers that be to acknowledge they might have, you know, messed this up.

"My message was always, with what they are saying now, is that they did the wrong thing to us," he told Myron Medcalf of ESPN at Big 12 media day on Wednesday. "My only issue at this point is I still haven't heard anybody call and say, 'You know what? We screwed up.' Accountability is a big deal to me. It's something I preach in our program every day.

"If somebody would call and just say, 'You know what, Coach? I get it. We did the wrong thing. That shouldn't have happened. We can't change it but I want you to at least know we acknowledge that.' Because that's all that can be done at this point."

I tell my kids this all the time: It’s amazing how much goodwill you’ll get from people for simply saying, “my bad, I screwed up, I’m sorry.”

But I’ll take it a step further. As I said in our reaction pod to the Kansas ruling, I believe that the NCAA should not only rescind the show-cause punishments that they handed out to Book Richardson and Tony Bland, but I believe that the federal government should issue pardons for the federal charges of everyone involved in this sham of a case:

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2. The Bill Self Revenge Tour has begun

Last week, Kansas learned its punishment from the FBI investigation: The answer, effectively, is ‘nothing else.’

Bill Self spoke to the media for the first time since then, and he had this to say.

“It’s time to go for the throat,” Self said. “We went through four years of time where I don’t think we recruited a top-20 player. I mean, folks, we’ve gone through periods of time in our tenure here where we’re one of three or one of four [schools] with four of the best 15 players in the country every year.”

Just for the record, this is what Kansas has done in the six seasons since this investigation started:

• Won the Big 12 regular season title four times

• Won the Big 12 tournament twice. It was cancelled 2020 and Kansas had their tournament ended early because of positive COVID tests in 2021.

• Reached the 2018 Final Four

• Won the 2022 National Title

• Sat as the heavy favorite to win it in 2020 when the dance was cancelled

• Entered this season as the Preseason No. 1 team

That’s not going for the throat?

Ironically enough, staying away from all the top 20 players might have been a blessing in disguise. Self’s sweet spot is with the three- and four-year guys that develop into All-Americans and NBA Draft picks at 21 and 22. Ochai Agbaji and Christian Braun and Udoka Azubuike and Hunter Dickinson and Dajuan Harris and I’m going to stop now because you get the point.

He didn’t do much with Cliff Alexander, or Andrew Wiggins, or Joel Embiid.

I’m not saying, I’m just saying …

3. The charge has been banned!

Oh, glory days!

Shaw also told Moore that, “it’s almost impossible to take a legal charge anymore.”

Hallelujah.

Look, I understand why coaches love charges and I get how it provides a way for teams to protect the rim when they don’t have a 6-11 shot-blocker on their roster. But what coaches want and what the college basketball viewing public wants are two different things.

Personally, I’m perfectly OK if I never see another weak-side defender try to undercut someone on their way to a thunderous dunk in traffic. There should only be two choices in that situation:

A. You have the cajones to go up and challenge someone at the rim, meaning we’ll see more posters, or …

B. You make the business decision, get out of the way and let the dude that made a great move to get to the rim finish above it.

If that means that we are forced into a world where we can’t celebrate the next Brad Davison, I’ll survive.

4. Nate Oats taking shots at Jelly Fam?

At SEC media day on Wednesday, Oats came under fire for this statement when asked about Aaron Estrada:

“He brings it every day. He is not up and down. Every single day you know what you’re getting from Aaron. He’s a hard playing guy … that is going to bring everything he’s get every day. I think that makes us a lot better as a team when you don’t have to beg your point guard to bring effort every day. Between him and Sears and Wrightsell, I think all three of those guys … set the tone for our team. I think it allows you to have tough, gritty defensive-minded, blue-collar type of guys and the type of team we want to have.”

That sounds an awful lot like Oats is firing shots at the point guard that just left, Jahvon Quinerly.

He later offered a clarification to the Tuscaloosa News:

Whether you believe that or think Oats was just doing damage control, I think this was probably more default coach-speak than it was a targeted, vengeful media attack on a guy no longer in the program. Most guys go into auto-pilot at these things, and I’m just not sure there’s value in going after a kid that left like this.

Oats is certainly capable of the level of petty I aspire to, and I doubt that Quinerly left on great terms after he made his decision to transfer as late as he did — and in the fashion that he did.

So I get why people made that connection.

My gut says this is more unfortunate coincidence that anything else.

5. Drew’s Crew

Are we sleeping on Baylor this season?

I get why people are concerned. I really do. They were a team that was built on offense, offense and more offense last season, and they lost the three dudes that could do the whole ‘offense’ thing for them.

But there are two things you may not realize.

1. This team is going to be able to guard.

Drew’s best teams, the ones that were competing for nattys and that were ranked No. 1 in the country for three straight seasons, were built on their defense. Instead of having three guards under 6-3 that were defense averse, this year’s team will have real, honest-to-God positional size. Throw in VCU transfer Jayden Nunn and a potential breakout for Jalen Bridges, and I’m in on this group.

2. RayJ Dennis is legit and his adjustment to the high-major level shouldn’t take long. He’s also the second-best addition in the backcourt; Ja’Kobe Walter is a stud.

Need more on Walter? You got it. This is from The Almanac preview that I wrote:

You can get the full breakdown of what the Bears will be, along with the other 361 teams in Division I, in The Almanac for just $19.99.

O’Boyle Rules!

You might as well familiarize yourself with Colorado now, because they’re going to be really good.

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Links as you try to picture Joel Embiid playing in Sketchers.

• Washington signed a VERY special recruit this week.

• Cincy is still waiting on waivers for Aziz Bandaogo and Jamille Reynolds.

• Michigan State forward Jaxon Kohler had foot surgery and is likely out until Christmas.

• Weber State is the pick to win the Big Sky, according to coaches and the media. (And the Almanac!)

• Bellarmine filed a waiver to shorten its ineligibility period for the NCAA tourney as a recent D-I school.

• Bob Huggins hasn’t had a drink since his DUI, per Frank Martin.

• Congress had an NIL plan, but it was going to “jettison” the HBCUs.

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