INDIANAPOLIS – They are flailing now, reaching for answers that aren’t there, but say this for the presidents of Purdue, Butler and Indiana: They are reaching nonetheless. University presidents are the ones who allowed college basketball to spin out of control 25 years ago, and it is the presidents who must respond to the corruption scandal uncovered last week by the FBI. Only they can fix the sport now.
They just don’t know how.
Don’t mock. Don’t laugh. What the FBI discovered, leading to the arrests of assistant coaches at four schools and the ouster of coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich at a fifth, is the result of seeds planted years before Michael McRobbie became president at IU, James Danko at Butler or Mitch Daniels at Purdue.