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Isiah sparks wild offseason
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But mostly, it's a time for recovery.
Because after three weeks of heart-thumping, nail-biting NCAA tournament action, college basketball is supposed to go back into its cave and hibernate for the next seven months until it's time for a new season to start.
Less than two weeks after North Carolina cut down the nets in Detroit and won its fifth national championship though, things haven't completely come to a halt.
Amid the coaching changes and the early NBA draft entries that have taken place since April 6, there's been plenty of college hoops news to hold our attention.
Former Duke point guard Greg Paulus, for one, is looking to return to football, whether it's in college at Michigan or in the NFL with possibly the Green Bay Packers.
Louisville head coach Rick Pitino, whose son, Richard, left the Cardinals to join Billy Donovan at Florida as an assistant, is fighting an extortion case against the wife of his longtime friend and equipment manager.
And further south, Mississippi head coach Andy Kennedy is taking the blame for initiating a December altercation with a cab driver, earning himself 40 hours of community service and some time on probation rather than some time behind bars.
Yet of all the stories that have surfaced during the first three weeks of the offseason, who thought Isiah Thomas would be returning to college, not to finish his degree but to coach?
You'd think a guy would learn his lesson after shutting down the CBA, nearly tearing apart the New York Knicks organization while sexually harassing a team executive and almost overdosing on sleeping pills.
Obviously, the Hall of Fame point guard hasn't. Instead, he's headed to Miami, a city full of distractions (i.e. crime, drugs and prostitution) with the hope of luring some of the top recruits in the country to a Florida International program that's only reached the NCAA tournament once — and that was almost 15 years ago.
"I think we can get good players from across Florida and around the country to buy into our plan to make this a top-tier basketball program," Thomas said in a statement after being hired as head coach. "I'm committed to growing something here, and strongly believe that over time, we'll put a team on the floor that everyone at FIU can be proud of."
If Thomas believes he's going to accomplish those goals in the five years he signed on for, he's living in his own Magic Kingdom.
The Panthers, to set the record straight, have lost 20 games in each of the last four years, and they haven't secured a winning record since the 1999-2000 season, finishing 16-14 that year.
"At the end of the day," Thomas said, "people know the kind of person that I am."
You mean the one that tried to cover up his own overdose by telling the authorities that his 17-year old daughter required the sleeping pills, when in reality, it was him? Such blind arrogance can only be comical for so long.
After all, when it comes down to it, not even Thomas knows what he's really getting himself into.
And neither does Florida International.
But at least athletic director Pete Garcia will have Thomas' first-year salary to hand the NCAA when the school is hit with its first recruiting violation.
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