Another One Bites the Dust; Crystal Ball Update; Trump Discovers SJS Volleyball

College basketball lost one of its premier coaches last week when Virginia's Tony Bennett, who'd led the Cavaliers to the national championship in 2019, decided to retire.

Bennett wasn't sick, and he wasn't pushed. He'd simply had enough of the current free-for-all that has become college basketball. Where players can transfer any time they want and demand six figure payments to play for you.

We shouldn't feel too bad for a man who gets to retire at 55 after winning an NCAA title, compiling an overall record of 433-169 at Virginia and Washington State, twice being named national coach of the year and making $30 or 40 million over his career. 

But we should feel bad about what it means for his sport.

"The game and college athletics is not in a healthy spot,” Bennett said. “And there needs to be change. I think I was equipped to do the job here the old way. But I looked at myself and I realized, I’m no longer the best coach to lead this program in this current environment."

Bennett follows a number of other coaching icons who've decided they couldn't handle the current environment--Nick Saban, Tara VanDerveer, and Jay Wright, to name a few.

Nowadays, coaches have to recruit their players from high school or the transfer portal, and then re-recruit them every year to keep them from leaving for greener pastures. 

The problem isn't recruitment, it's retention.

The combination of NIL payments, which have become recruiting inducements, and the transfer portal, which allows athletes to change schools at the drop of a hat, has changed the relationship dynamic between players and coaches.

 Coaches at lower level schools know any good player they recruit will likely leave at the first opportunity, while at the higher levels, any player might transfer if he loses his starting job, doesn't love his coach or gets offered more money by another school.

So the threat of a player picking up and leaving at any time hangs over every lineup decision, every player-coach interaction, every act of discipline, and every NIL payment offer.

It's gotten so bad, you start wondering if some player might transfer at halftime.

The problem isn't that players are making money. The problem is the lack of regulation and control. 

The only way to maintain some order, provide some sanity in the system, and comply with antitrust law, is a structure that includes collective bargaining, salary caps, contracts and restrictions on player movement. 

Yes, it's gotten to the point where players should sign contracts like professionals. If you ask most coaches privately, they'll tell you that's what they'd prefer.

And if it doesn't happen soon, more great coaches will follow Tony Bennett out the door.

Crystal Ball Update: Eight weeks into the college football season, our prediction that Oregon would be the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoffs and Georgia would be No. 2, is looking pretty good. 

The Ducks moved up to No. 1 in the national AP rankings this week after Texas was upset by Georgia, and the Bulldogs moved up three spots on the basis of their big win over the Longhorns. 

It's still very early, so we're not lighting any cigars just yet.

We liked Ducks' quarterback Dillon Gabriel for the Heisman, and after a slow start, he is emerging as one of the leading contenders. Right now, I'd rate him as my fourth pick behind Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty, Miami quarterback Cam Ward, and Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter.

Trump Knows the Way To San Jose: Presidential candidate Donald Trump has discovered San Jose State athletics. In a forum on women's issues last week, he referenced an incident where a transgender SJS volleyball player spiked a ball against San Diego State and the Aztec player briefly fell down.

“I saw the slam, it was a slam. I never saw a ball hit so hard, hit the girl in the head,” Trump said. “But other people, even in volleyball, they’ve been permanently, I mean, they’ve been really hurt badly. Women playing men. We stop it. We stop it. We absolutely stop it. You can’t have it.”

As usual, just about everything Trump said was wrong. He obviously didn't watch a tape of the play.

 The ball hit the SDS player in the shoulder, not in the head. She briefly fell down and hit the deck, then bounced up immediately, which happens all the time in volleyball. She didn't miss a play.

And no volleyball player on record has been hurt badly by a spike from a transgender player.

Both San Diego State and San Jose State were forced to issue statements repudiating Trump's claims.

Just another day in Trumpworld. At the same town hall, he also called himself "the father of IVF", said the rioters on Jan. 6 "did nothing wrong," and reiterated his bogus claim that immigrants in Ohio were eating their neighbor's pets.

But it's nice to see him paying some attention to college sports in the Bay Area. 

If he was really interested, he might comment on the great job new football coach Ken Niumatalolo is doing at San Jose State, which improved to 5-2 with a win over Wyoming Saturday. Or how Spartans' receiver Nick Nash is one of the best in the country.

But that would require actually doing some research and telling the truth.