University of Hawaii basketball fans have to hope that the firing of head coach Gib Arnold and assistant Brandyn Akana might be enough to satisfy the NCAA. But the very fact that UH felt it had to take such drastic steps as damage control does not bode well.
Losing star Isaac Fotu and/or other players, reduced scholarships, postseason bans … don’t count any of these out once all is said and done and the NCAA has lowered the boom itself.
Reality dictates Tuesday’s firings possibly being just the start of a very dark time for UH basketball — hopefully not as long as the decade of despair resulting from the 1970s investigation.
At any rate, this is no way to launch a new season. But UH had to beat the NCAA to the punch, and now its coach is gone.
The timing itself should give you an idea. Completely disrupting the team’s leadership just a few practices before the start of the season was the only move UH felt it could make.
There seem to be two opposite reactions from people on this … as there often have been when it comes to all things involving Arnold.
Some are not surprised at all, because they’ve been following along since March, when the NCAA launched its investigation. They realized that the tip of the iceberg indicated something very bad.
One altered document usually isn’t enough to crumble a program. But what it is indicative of, the culture and the way of doing business it represents? That — and at least one dropping of a dime by a rival program — factored into the NCAA taking a closer look.
And then there are those who are shocked — apparently, Arnold among them.
Really? This has been ongoing for seven months. A live NCAA investigation is like a bad tooth. The pain might go away for spells, but it always comes back.
Arnold must have really believed himself when he continually insisted that nothing was wrong, this was all some big misunderstanding, and when all was said and done he would be vindicated.
I feel sad for fans and for the players … but mostly for all of us state taxpayers who are once again taking it in the shorts thanks to UH. As a parting gift, Arnold will get paid for eight months of doing nothing. Sure, buyouts and negotiated settlements are a reality in big-time college sports when things don’t go right. But UH has been big-time rarely and not in quite a while. Add him to the long list of freeloaders.
This is even more distasteful when you consider Arnold was foisted upon us by a fan club (even before the job came open). Some of those members disengaged along the way and stopped donating to his salary.
I enjoyed Arnold’s personal style at times and found his teams often fun to watch. But they weren’t good enough in a bad conference for even moral midgets to think running afoul of the NCAA might somehow be worth it.
Arnold continually insisted that the high rate of transfers out of his program was normal, but it really wasn’t. It had more to do with poor recruiting choices and coach-player relations. And his inability to get along with them factored into his demise.
Now, we’re left with the concept of Riley Wallace as a one-year caretaker for the program. It seems in some ways like a good idea, since we all know the longtime UH coach has a genuine love for the islands and would likely do the job for a reasonable price.
The prospect of your best option being a 73-year-old who has been out of coaching the past seven years while working at a casino might seem bizarre. But the way things work at UH, it’s just business as unusual.
Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.
