Just my luck USC is playing and Stanford the weekend that I am in San Francisco....and they are playing in L.A.

Anyway, I haven't had a chance to read much on this game...

Leave your comments here.

FIGHT ON!

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The Trojan men beat #13 California 5-2 at Berkley in the closest match of the young season, taking the doubles and winning four of six singles matches. Lead by senior Steve Johnson with a 6-2, 6-1 at #1 singles and getting a clinching victory by freshman Roberto Quiroz at #6 singles 6-2, 7-5 pushed their record to 6-0. Cal put up a very good fight not being a 13 ranked team with only one ranked player in the line-up. The best match was at #2 singles where Ray Sarmiento split sets and had to play a tye breaker for the deciding set because the match was already clinched, a few years back they would have played the last set.

#1 USC 5, #13 California 2

Feb. 4, 2012 -- Berkeley, Calif.

DOUBLES

(1) Hanfmann/S. Johnson (USC) def. #5 Andrews/Konigsfeldt (CAL) -- 8-3

(2) #27 Cueto/B. McLachlan (CAL) def. Nguyen/Sarmiento (USC) -- 7-6 (6)

(3) Gomez/Quiroz (USC) def. R. McLachlan/Murphy (CAL) -- 8-1

USC wins doubles point

Order of finish: 3, 1*, 2

SINGLES

(1) Steve Johnson (USC) def. Nick Andrews (CAL) -- 6-2, 6-1

(2) Carlos Cueto (CAL) def. #12 Ray Sarmiento (USC) -- 6-4, 3-6, 1-0 (8)

(3) #16 Daniel Nguyen (USC) def. Christoffer Konigsfeldt (CAL) -- 6-4, 6-3

(4) #42 Ben McLachlan (CAL) def. #33 Yannick Hanfmann (USC) -- 6-4, 6-4

(5) #48 Emilio Gomez (USC) def. Gregory Bayane (CAL) -- 6-0, 6-3

(6) Roberto Quiroz (USC) def. Ahmed Ismail (CAL) -- 6-2, 7-5*

Order of finish: 1, 5, 4, 6*, 3, 2

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I wanted to write about this before signing day but I got side tracked.

Being in the NYC area, I have read here and there about the Ryan Boatright. You remember when Boatright committed to USC when he was 13 years old?

Then Boatright committed to UConn.

Then there were some allegations about improper benefits during his recruitment.......

Anyway, the case was resolved recently with the NCAA reinstating Boatright...but with an unusual twist.

The NCAA decided to publicly lay its "case" against Boatright right out for the public for all to see and that elicited a stinging rebuke from Boatright's Mothers attorney.

"I am astounded that the NCAA released confidential information about Ryan's case," Tompsett said. "Ryan and his mother Tanesha cooperated fully with the NCAA with the clear understanding that the information they provided would be kept confidential and would not be released to the public. The NCAA has violated the Boatrights' privacy by releasing their personal information. Moreover, the NCAA's statement contains false and misleading information."

"For example," Tompsett continued, " the statement implies that the benefits in question were provided to influence Ryan's decision either to attend UConn or chose an agent, if and when he goes pro. That is false and the NCAA knows it."

That, in turn, brought this response from the New York Times...

n its release, the N.C.A.A. neither names the third parties nor explains what they stood to gain. But one of them is already known: Reggie Rose, Ryan’s former A.A.U. coach and the brother of Derrick Rose, the Chicago Bulls star. According to the N.C.A.A., Rose paid for Tanesha to accompany her son on four recruiting trips. He made some payments on her 2008 Impala. And Rose took Ryan on a two-day trip to California where he got to scrimmage with some top-notch players.

Why did he do this? Clearly, he wasn’t trying to steer Ryan to a particular school. And he certainly wasn’t fronting for an agent; as good as he is, Ryan is not a sure-fire pro.

In fact, he did it because he and Tanesha have a longstanding friendship. He became a mentor to Ryan, something teenagers of single moms desperately need. Indeed, he took Ryan to California because Ryan’s household was under an unusual amount of stress at the time. How is this wrong? Indeed, what exactly is the N.C.A.A. violation here? The N.C.A.A. never says.

I haven't really followed the case but the one thing that stood out to me was this...

The NCAA has penchant for telling schools not comment on investigations, yet the NCAA had absolutely no problem putting its case out there for all to see when the reinstated Boatright. That seems shabby to me and smacks of revenge.

They really couldn't nail the kid so they try to make Boatright and his mom look bad in the process.

And the NCAA wonders why they are constantly under fire.

NCAA mouth piece Ronnie Ramos took to Twitter earlier this evening to sat that the NYT righter got his facts wrong. That is not surprising, that is the standard NCAA response, shoot the messenger. But even if Ramos is right that the facts are wrong, that still doesn't explain the NCAA throwing the details out there to make the kid and his mother look bad.

Shameless...

UPDATE:

The NYT's Joe Nocera picks apart the NCAA's press release here.

Pretty heady stuff, but it is not like we haven't seen this before...The NCAA has a penchant for using convicted felons as their primary source of info even if hey have a few "holes" in their stories....Then again other times they don't interview some of the prime suspects like what happened in the Ohio State Case.