College Basketball's Top 10 Cheaters

Let's cut the spin, ignore the hype and falsehoods, and actually count the REAL cheating. Cheating that's bold, intentional, and in-your-face -- almost as if those cheaters themselves know the NCAA will be looking the other way.
(And usually they are unless some of the bloggers and sports writers actually catch the cheaters and report on it.)
Cheating on recruiting, cheating to keep players eligible, academic fraud, pulling strongs to get an advantage, even cheating in games. I know there's room for a difference of opinion - but a guy who cheated only once or twice isn't even going to come close to making this list...and it doesn't matter if the NCAA went soft on you or cut you slack -- because cheating is cheating no matter whether you got your penalties or not.

This TOP 10 are the real cheaters - the guys who trump everyone else...
To make this list you have to....

1-- Cheat and cheat plenty and do it in a bold and arrogant fashion

2-- Cheat at the top level - because a cheater at the D-II level or a cheater at Binghamton just isn't in the same ball park as these guys who cheat at the highest level of their game

3-- Cheat without conscience -- cheat as if it is YOUR RIGHT to cheat and get away with it, and then defend your actions like those who caught you had no danged right to even be watching you!

4-- Cheat and then compound it even more by lying and covering it up and even coercing those under you to lie as well

5-- Cheat with an in-your-face style where you never show remorse, never apologize or admit your guilt, and then just move on to another top level coaching job and cheat more there...a cheating bully who never admits his actions are downright wrong

OK here goes.........

#10 - Bobby Knight - yeah -- I know what some will say -- that he has never been caught cheating. Again -- go look at the original criteria..
Anyway -- using foul language, abusing your players then intimidating them to shut up and not talk about the violations, hitting and choking innocent kids that you've recruited, cursing at refs, picking up technicals, joking about rape, and throwing chairs across the floor....Knight has cheated plenty...and was the epitome of negative coaching techniques and behavior.
PLUS -- calling people "chickenshit" on national TV, defending cheaters like Jim Tressel and calling Tressel an honorable guy, and stooping to acting out a silly "reality" show -- all the while scripting things that you are claiming are "REALITY" -- isn't that cheating the viewers as well??
These are all augmenting factors...as are the facts that he did NOT "always graduate his players" -- in fact they didn't graduate any more than anyone else's players. Plus Knight proved once he no longer had the recruiting prowess that came from being at Indiana -- he was little more than mediocre -- just look at his numbers at Texas Tech and his sub-.500 Big 12 performance.


#9 - Bill Self -- Self hasn't been penalized much but that's because the NCAA always goes easy on the guys running the big programs. But the cheating scandal he got caught with when JR Giddens and Darnell Jackson got caught taking money to play at Kansas -- and then hiring the fathers of several key players -- illegal contact with John Wall & other recruits - not to mention all the mayhem his players routinely do and seem to get away with it from shooting people out their dorm windows, forming on-campus mobs to attack other students, bar fights and drunken fights with their girlfriends.
If you actually do a count Bill Self might actually have more cheating issues than all the others on this list.


#8 - Dave Bliss -- lots of people claim Bliss was worse and should be higher on the list. But seriously, he cheated at Baylor -- not exactly the upper echelon of college basketball and his cheating was artificially amplified by a tragic shooting that really wasn't Bliss fault.


#7 -- John Calipari -- Cal has to have an asterisk since he's still cheating on a regular basis...and after enough of his players finally get caught getting paid, and after enough of his games and even Final Four appearances get vacated - and his players ACT and SAT test scores are proven to have been taken by someone else..then Cal will maybe move higher on this list. But then the guys above him are going to be hard to catch!!


#6 -- Tim Floyd -- Floyd hasn't been caught cheating a whole lot but his efforts are legendary. Paying cash in envelops to funnel players like OJ Mayo to USC, then enabling agents to provide OJ with wide-screen TV's, clothes, cars, and cash. Then the clincher that gets him to #6 is offering a full scholarship to marginally talentless rapper Master P (Percy Miller) just to get DeMar DeRozan to come to USC.


#5 -- Jim Calhoun -- we're only now seeing the tip of the iceberg with Calhoun as a cheater and the NCAA is letting him get away with a lot of it...but those thousands of illegal phone calls, and hiring a known agent as your team manager are some pretty bold ideas....


#4 -- Jim Harrick - a lot of people don't remember the depth to which Harrick sank in cheating and even formulating his phony tests for academic fraud purposes - tests to make sure all his players would get "A's" on their tests...questions like "how many players play at one time on a basketball team"..
Here's a reminder of just some of Harrick's cheating but Georgia got off practically scott-free.
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/03/28/spt_harrick28.html

Here's a recap on how minimal the Georgia penalties were in the face of such massive cheating...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=1309


#3 -- Clem Haskins -- again, a lot of people won't really remember - but Clem cheated in so many ways and so blatantly and openly with arrogance, that I am surprised more people don't use him as their top example.
ESPN even ranked this cheating scandal as the highest college basketball cheating scandal since 1950.
Hardly a single player during his tenure at Minnesota ever had to take a test -- Clem always had someone else take them for the players and ace them.
And again -- even with cheating, scandals, and violations so severe that many thought Minnesota was risking the death penalty -- the NCAA handed them simple probation...
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/199903/11_newsroom_cheating/


#2 -- Kelvin Sampson -- his name literally means cheating and his name will always be spoken with a context of perennial, cold, calculating cheating in mind -- literally several hundreds of broken NCAA rules -- perhaps more in sheer number of rules broken than any other coach!!
All his cheating was amplified because his fans at IU bragged about how he's going to get away with it, he's a great coach and a great recruiter, and anyway - it was Indiana and the NCAA isn't going to hutr Indiana (which of course they didn't).
And his exploits at two different schools got NCAA sanctions and one of the top two spots on this list..and oddly gets Indiana, who people claim is such a squeaky clean school, gets TWO spots on this list!!!
Kelvin would have been sitting atop this list except for the recent exploits of the man in orange -- the guy who likes to take his shirt off and sweat for fans....see below....


#1 -- Bruce Pearl -- what can I say ??? For years I have said this guy is a sleazy, lying cheater...and people responded with foolish mantra like -- "but he's a good coach" or "but nobody's ever caught him cheating that much.." or "he doesn't even belong in this discussion"......
Those Bruce Pearl apologist have all ducked into holes or have left the building and gone into hiding.
Yeah....right.........BP-apologists -- well this is a new century and now we know Bruce Pearl not only cheated plenty at Tennessee, but he cheated plenty in many of the same ways with illegal recruiting at Wisconsin-Milwaukee and even at University of Southern Indiana. We also know he was cheating at Iowa because of the NCAA findings back then when Bruce ratted on Illinois. But wait -- that's not all....
Bruce defends his cheating and lies regularly about -- not just to NCAA but he lies to his own people and his own bosses....
BUT surely many of his own people DID know about his cheating and played a part in it...
I even recall a conversation I had with a UW-M apologist when Bruce cheated and tampered with Joah Tucker to lure him away from Bradley and land him at UW-M -- and the jerk even claimed it didn't matter if Bruce cheated because he was able to do it in a manner that wouldn't get caught and anyway he was still a good coach!

Bruce Pearl has been cheating in so many ways and for so long that it is part of his very makeup and I really doubt he could coach without cheating. So anyone who claims Pearl is a good coach has no clue nor any real way to prove it since Bruce has NEVER coached without cheating so there's no evidence he ever could.
Of course Pearl also has the indoor record for the number of his recruits and players who had drug arrests and failed drug tests, kids booted and sent packing for serious transgressions -- kids who were caught with dope in their dorm rooms then started the very next game, -- kids who failed so many drug tests before getting booted that even Pearl himself lost count, plus bar fights, women beaters, and felons....
Pearl is so far in first place on this list that I just can't see any active coach ever catching up except just maybe Calipari but he'd really have to try hard.


Honorable Mention goes to Jim O'Brien of Ohio State - but since he's never coached again since his scandal -- it's hard to know if he as incorrigible of a cheater as the rest...
Anyway O'Brien not only cheated by paying players to come and play at Ohio State - he also provided lots of other amenities - including a live-in nanny - one who even provided sexual services for the recruits. Since we're not spinning this just to sound nice....then let's face it - where we live, we call that a whore...
http://www.redszone.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-34549.html