Not to pile on TOO much, but I enjoyed this bit of Schadenfreude that I found in the form of this article from Slate. Yeah, part of my enjoyment stems from the fact that I’m bitter, but then again, I’m ALWAYS bitter (at least according to many who know me, including Chas, Pat and Lee). Another part of my enjoyment, however, came from Jacob Liebenluft’s skillful deflating of the whole “Cinderella” myth.

First, the fun part; that is, the part about Bradley not being as pure as “they” would have us belive:

Let’s take a closer look at Bradley University, that great restorer of
innocence. Patrick O’Bryant, the Braves’ 7-foot-tall NBA prospect, was suspended for eight games earlier this year for accepting money for work he never did. Three other Bradley players were found to have
accepted excessive payments. (The school claimed the players didn’t realize they were receiving too much money.) After the Braves’ second-best player, Marcellus Sommerville, transferred from the University of Iowa in 2003, his father told the Peoria Journal-Star that Bradley coaches engaged in illegal tampering, encouraging Sommerville to
switch schools while he was still enrolled at Iowa. Starting point guard Daniel Ruffin was forced to sit out his freshman year when the NCAA refused to accept his test scores.

Adding on to this delightful take down, Mr. Liebenluft goes on to put the Missouri Valley Conference, this year’s Mid-major darling, in its place:

At least Bradley graduates 73 percent of its players—a figure many of its fellow Cinderellas can’t come close to matching. The plucky Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers, who dominated Oklahoma in the first round, have a graduation rate of 28 percent. Bradley’s Missouri Valley Conference rivals at Wichita State (50 percent) and Northern Iowa (30 percent) don’t fare much better.

Wrapping up, he then does his best to explode the “mid-major” ideal altogether:

Much of the little guys’ appeal comes from the fact that the players don’t turn pro after their sophomore year and the coaches don’t get paid big bucks. But that has less to do with morals than opportunity. Mid-major players don’t emerge fully formed from a magical peach-basket-laden gym in rural Indiana, ready to hoop it up and hit the books with equal enthusiasm. They come from the same shady prep schools and junior colleges as the major-conference studs—they’re just not quite good enough to get recruited by the top-tier teams.

Read the whole thing for yourselves. If you’re like me, and suspect that some of you are, then you’ll find it a great help to realize that many of these “Cinderallas” are really just hookers with hearts of gold.