Did two Michigan State basketball players rape a fellow student?

In case you missed it, here’s a quick recap of the details involving an alleged rape perpetrated by two Michigan State basketball players a month ago. On August 30, a female MSU student filed a police report saying she had been raped the night before in a dorm room. In the report she fingered two as yet unnamed Spartan basketball players as the men who assaulted her. On September 14, despite a police recommendation to prosecute, the Ingham County Prosecutor’s office chose not to do so:

When I first heard about this I was a little confused as to why a prosecutor would ignore a police recommendation and instead choose not to pursue the case.  Was there some inconsistency in the woman’s story?  Maybe, but if so, why didn’t that originally jump out as a red flag to police?

In stepped the Michigan Messenger today with a complete copy of the police report, and it’s pretty disturbing stuff.  In the excerpt from the letter above, Dunnings asserts that no one in his office could find any element of coercion.  That’s strange, because when you read the report, it sounds like there was a whole hell of a lot of coercing going on:

What the hell’s going on here?  Is Dunnings not revealing a key piece of information that his office has regarding this alleged rape?  You can read the report in its entirety right here:

John and Ehud talk Sympathy Fan Syndrome and go to hell in the process

In this edition of LT Audio, John lets Ryan Mallett have it, Ehud professes his undying devotion for Todd McCulloch and the guys unsuccessfully navigate the minefield of Down Syndrome football players.

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An uncensored in-game call to an extremely passionate Oklahoma fan

I grew up with a guy named Bill, and ever since I can remember, he’s been a passionate Oklahoma fan. He’s the kind of guy of who takes it personal when the Sooners aren’t playing well. So this past Saturday, when Oklahoma was struggling on the road with an overmatched Cincinnati team, I gave him a call. The following is the NSFW recording of that conversation:

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Mike Singletary is batshit nuts

I used to think Mike Singletary was just one hell of an intense dude.  Just look at the picture right here from his playing days, how epic was his pre-snap stare? But now that he’s got a season and change under his belt as head coach of the 49ers, I no longer think he’s intense, I think he’s just crazy.

Clue #1 was his hiring of Jimmy Raye as his offensive coordinator. Raye’s a dude who’s been in the NFL coaching ranks for decades, with multiple stops as an offensive coordinator. But here’s the deal…Raye’s never really coordinated a truly great offense.  Here’s a recap of his gigs along with where those offenses finished in the league:

• Los Angeles Rams (two stints: 1983-84, 1991) - 12th ranked offense in 1983, 21st in 1984, 18th in 1991

• Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1985-86) - 23rd in 1985 , 27th in 1986

• New England Patriots (1990) - 26th in 1990

• Kansas City Chiefs (1998-00) - 19th in 1998, 12th in 1999, 8th in 2000

• Washington Redskins (2001) - 28th in 2001

• Oakland Raiders (2004-05) - 17th in 2004, 21st in 2005

• San Francisco 49ers (2009-10) - 27th in 2009, fired in week 3 of 2010

It’s one thing that Raye’s never really distinguished himself as an offensive innovator, but he’s also no spring chicken, either.  At the start of this season, he was every bit of 64 years old.  I know that’s not totally ancient by coaching standards, but his old fartedness at least appeared to be hampering the offense.  Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports reported after the 49ers’ ugly opening day loss at the Seahawks that the coaches (namely Raye) were having trouble getting plays into quarterback Alex Smith:

“It seems like Jimmy calls plays from memory a lot of the time and not exactly the way it’s written down,” said one of the aforementioned sources, adding that the plays often get garbled. “He knows the plays and he knows the right thing to call, but he’s fumbling through his papers and it’s like, ‘Hey, we need to get a play called.’ ” (Yahoo! Sports)

Keep in mind that last season, the 49ers led the NFL in delay of game penalties.  But did the head coach choose to remedy that situation in the offseason?  Nah, Singletary has an offensive vision (whatever that might be), and Raye was the yes man willing to implement it.  Now that’s solid leadership.

Hell, who knows what was really going on with Raye in the coaches box.  I wonder how many times Singletary’s heard a nice, rhythmic snoring sound in his headsets during games.  And I wouldn’t be surprised if Raye had stopped paying attention to the game altogether and started fumbling around on the nearest TV in hopes of finding a “Matlock” rerun playing on some local channel.

After defending Raye to the media through an ugly 0-3 start (this is after the 49ers were a trendy pick to win the NFC West), Singletary finally shitcanned him this week.  Whether or not Raye was lucid enough to know what was going during his termination meeting is up for debate.  Most likely, he was just confused as to why Singletary would give him a public vote of confidence roughly a day before pink slipping him.

Clue #2 in regards to Singletary’s tenuous grip on sanity is his deteriorating relationship with the media.  He had an ugly exchange with sports anchor Dennis O’Donnell of San Francisco TV station KPIX last week, but unfortunately for us the video’s been taken off the interwebs.  O’Donnell’s offense?  He lobbed a couple of slightly tough questions at a coach whose team is stinking up the joint.  What did Singletary expect from the press, that they’d be blowing sunshine up his rear end?

This thing will get worse before it gets better, so I fully anticipate a full blown, Hal McRae-ish meltdown from Singletary before the season is over:

The Free Enes “movement” has its own theme song

For now, mega recruit Enes Kanter is free to practice with the Kentucky basketball team while the NCAA tries to decide whether or not he’s an amateur.  At issue is whether or not Kanter has received a salary to play hoops, which at least one source says was the case:

The best recruit in Kentucky’s top-ranked recruiting class, the Turkish center Enes Kanter, received more than $100,000 in cash and benefits over three years from the professional team he played for here, according to the team’s general manager.

In an interview in his office here this week, the general manager of Fenerbahce Ulker, Nedim Karakas, said the club had given banking and housing records to the N.C.A.A. that show Kanter received benefits that could jeopardize his amateur status for college basketball. (New York Times)

But even with the New York Times digging up evidence, Kentucky coach John Calipari appears to be extremely confident that Kanter will suit up for the Wildcats this season. Here’s what Calipari told the AP this week:

“The kid, in my mind, is an amateur,” Calipari said. “He never signed anything. He played on a club over in Europe. But how they rule that thing out, I have no idea.”

Calipari said the recent relaxing of NCAA rules pertaining to the amateur status of foreign athletes made him comfortable offering a scholarship to Kanter.

“If you’re under 18 years of age, you’re not considered a professional in Europe anymore,” Calipari said. “You couldn’t sign a FIBA contract, so you have no contract, and any games you played against professional players now do not work against you. That’s the new rules.”

Calipari said Kanter, who turned 18 on May 20, received only the necessary expenses while playing for the team and that Kanter’s family kept “meticulous” records to protect Kanter’s status should it come into question. (Associated Press)

Needless to say, this has caused quite the uproar with Kentucky’s ultra-passionate fan base.  How pissed are they?  Well, imagine UK super fan Ashley Judd getting so worked up that her head explodes.  Now you’ve got an idea of how pissed they are:

If you’re a Wildcat fan who’s hoarse from screaming at your local sports talk radio host about this subject, go ahead and save your vocal cords for the actual season.  For just $16, you can buy your own “Free Enes” t-shirt right here to SHOW the world how ticked you are.

Not satisfied with just wearing your dissatisfaction on your chest?  In that case, burn the following dope cut to CD, crank up the speakers in your Cavalier and let some soon to be has been rapper named Rich Breezy make your case for you:

FREE ENES!!!!  Although he’s not actually wrongly incarcerated or anything like that, you know, the way Nelson fucking Mandela was.  Free Nelson Mandela…now there was a cause you could get behind.  Free Enes?!?!  You gotta be kidding me.

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