Good Grief … NCAA Basketball Goes Thug Life & Gangsta … Cincinnati – Xavier Turns into Brawl … Suspend Them All

WHAT A TOTAL DISGRACE … IS THIS WHAT NCAA BASKETBALL HAS BECOME … GANGSTA THUG LIFE?

What has always been a tough fought NCAA basketball rivalry, yesterday the Cincinnati Bearcats and Xavier Musketeers basketball teams embarrassed themselves, their respective schools and NCAA basketball. The game got called with 9.4 seconds remaining in the second half when an all out, ugly brawl began that had been simmering throughout.  Technically the game did not end and honestly the NCAA should disqualify both teams from any victory and suspend the players involved for the season.

Xavier’s senior All-America guard Tu Holloway readily admitted afterward that he was taunting Cincinnati players and coaches in front of Cincinnati’s bench, as the clock wound down. What ensued was a basketball brawl as ugly as any in memory. At one point, Xavier center Kenny Frease emerged from the pile on all fours, blood dripping from a gash below his left cheek, courtesy of a punch thrown by Cincinnati forward Yancy Gates.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE INDIVIDUALS? FOLKS, THIS AIN’T THE HOOD!

What might have been more disgraceful than the actions that took place at the end of the game, punches, fighting and kicking that took place was the comments made by the players in the post game conference. Some of the players actually defended their thug behavior. NICE. With no due respect to Tu Holloway, you acted like nothing more than gangstas and thugs and with your comments afterwords probably do not even belong in college. As reported from SI.com:

“We’re grown men over here,” Holloway explained. “We got a whole bunch of gangsters in the locker room. Not thugs, but tough guys on the court.”

When asked why he taunted the Cincinnati bench and thus had a big hand in inciting the fracas, Holloway said he had been “disrespected.” It was a reference to Cincinnati guard Sean Kilpatrick saying during a local radio interview Thursday that he was better than Holloway, and that Holloway would not start on Cincinnati’s team.

“This is my city,” Holloway explained. “I’m cut from a different cloth. None of them guys on their team is like me. We got disrespected. Maybe it looked bad to you (media), but this is what I’m used to. This is where I’m from. This wasn’t bad.”

Disrespected. Are you serious? Just how much disrespect do you think you did to your university and NCAA college basketball? There should not be suspensions, there should be expulsions from the team and the college. The only individual this any perspective, pride or honor was Cinnicati coach Mick Cronin who stated he had never been more embarassed in his life, “I have never been this embarrassed in my entire career. It’s a complete embarrassment. Toughness is doing the right thing. … If my players don’t act the right way, they will never play another game at Cincinnati.”

The gutless Xavier coach Chris Mack took a more measured approach as he certainly would not want to affect the ranking of his top 10 Xavier team over something as trivial as sportsmanship and acting according to NCAA rules.

I’m not in a position to be a decision maker,” said Mack by phone from the Cintas Center. “We’ll address the situation and see what our conference feels is necessary. The bigger thing is that our kids in this situation need to learn how to handle themselves and not let that happen again.

“No one wanted the game to end like that. We wanted to have our seniors celebrate the Crosstown Shootout.”

It’s too bad these punks actually take the “Crosstown Shootout” literally. Had these thugs done this in another setting rather than a basketball court, they would have been arrested and charged with assault. “Zip ‘em up”, eh? These player need to be reminded what their lives would be like if not for an opportunity to play college ball.

College basketball better take a real goo look at this and act accordingly. The NCAA and universities have done enough over the years with taking a blind eye to bad and criminal behavior. If you want March Madness and your ratings to go away and look like the NBA … Keep it up. This was truly shameful and there best be severe consequences to these actions. One and two game suspensions is no answer.