Back to the Top News Newsfeed

Who’s on Trial in the College Basketball Scandal? Not the Big Names

Associated Press

Before Jerry Tarkanian built a college basketball powerhouse in Las Vegas, he was the coach at Long Beach State in the early 1970s and had two tormentors: John Wooden and his dynastic U.C.L.A. teams, and the N.C.A.A.

What irked Tarkanian for years, though, was the way the N.C.A.A. pursued him doggedly at every stop in his career yet seemed to have little interest in digging into all the favors a notorious booster did for U.C.L.A. players in the ’60s and ’70s.

“The N.C.A.A. is so mad at U.C.L.A.,” Tarkanian would quip, “they’re going to put Cal State Northridge on probation.