By Alan Rubenstein Sports Central Columnist

In a sport with a history full of scandals, the problems at Baylor are the most serious and bizarre college basketball has seen yet. While many fans and so-called experts are declaring the Baylor mess as the apocalypse of collegiate hoops, history shows the opposite to be true.

Past scandals have derailed and ended coaching careers, tarnished player reputations, and even involved students and mobsters in an effort to cash-in on the fortune that the NCAA members schools do not like to share. Past improprieties have included point-shaving at numerous schools, academic fraud, and frequent tussles between the NCAA compliance office and specific institutions and coaches.

Patrick Denneny and Carlton Dotson seemed to have a great relationship as teammates and athletes with promising futures. Somewhere during the summer, a strong friendship went seriously wrong. Denneny had relayed to his step-father that he was scared for his life. A few weeks later, Denneny was dead, Dotson would be arrested and indicted with his murder, and former Baylor head coach Dave Bliss would eventually be charged with covering up a multitude of sins at the Baptist school.

Other allegations that have surfaced at Baylor include improper tuition payments, suppressed drug results, and an assistant coach capturing Bliss on tape imploring his players to implicate Denneny as a drug dealer.

Former New Mexico Athletic Director Gary Ness claimed that Bliss flirted with breaking NCAA rules while the coach of the Lobos. Ness mentioned that some of the indiscretions at UNM included helping reinstate a basketball player after he was dropped from two courses, not telling the AD about guns confiscated from the locker room, and routinely dancing around rules barring recruits who were unqualified academically from practicing.

Baylor was far from the first school to occur a scandal that made national headlines. The first college basketball scandal that became part of the national conscientiousness was the Kentucky and CCNY point-shaving scandal in 1951. Kentucky and CCNY were the primary schools involved in a seven-team gambling scheme that involved 32 players and seven institutions that reportedly fixed 86 games.

CCNY would eventually de-emphasize their nationally-renowned basketball program as a result of the scandals. The Beavers had been one of the early powers of college basketball and is the only team to capture the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same year (1950).

In 1961, St. Joseph (PA) was forced to vacate their third-place finish in the NCAA tournament because of alleged student athlete involvement with a gambler. The following year saw 37 players from 22 schools implicated in another gambling scandal that culminated with the arrest and conviction of three gamblers charged with fixing college basketball.

During the 1978-79 season, Boston College players became the next school to succumb to point-shaving. The B.C. scandal involved infamous mobster Henry Hill (about whom the movie "Good Fellas" is based on). B.C. players Rick Kuhn and Jim Sweeney were the first to sign on and when Eagle star Ernie Cobb signed on for the season's last five games, the fix would be assured. Eventually, Kuhn would serve 28 months in prison for the fixing after accepting close to $10,000. Sweeney and Cobb were not changed.

The 1980s' most notorious scandal occurred at Tulane and involved forward and future NBA player John "Hot Rod" Williams. As per his indictment, Williams accepted about $8,550 for shaving points in three games. Williams would eventually be indicated on two counts of sports bribery and three counts of conspiracy, but was exonerated when his case ended in a mistrial.

The 1990s' point-shaving scandals at Arizona State and Northwestern involved student bookies working with the players to take their slice of the pie. At NU, players Dion Lee and Dewey Williams worked with former Wildcat Brian Ballerini, who was accused of accepting bets from other Northwestern players. Lee eventually pleaded guilty to sports bribery and was sentenced to one month in prison and two counts of sports bribery.

At ASU, Stevin Smith and Issac Burton pled guilty to conspiracy to commit sports bribery. Burton had been approached by Smith to help him fix games after Smith ran up a $10,000 dept with student-bookie Benny Silman. Burton was asked to miss a few free-throws in exchange for $4,300. Smith served a year in prison. Burton served two months in jail, six months in home-detention, three years probation, $8,000 in fines, and 200 hours of community service.

The academic scandal at Minnesota brought down the Gophers' most successful season. Clem Haskins had led the Gophers to their first Final Four in 1997 and was building a promising program in the Big 10 before Minnesota academic advisor Jan Gangelhoff tarnished the school's image with charges of cheating at Minnesota.

The accusations nearly brought the UM athletic department to its knees. Haskins was asked to leave with a $1.5 million buyout of his contract, Athletic Director Mark Dienhart resigned, and others in the Gopher athletic department lost their jobs.

Former Long Beach State, UNLV, and Fresno State coach Jerry Tarkanian was well-known for his struggles with the NCAA and circumvention of their rules. When he left Long Beach, the 49ers would go on probation, UNLV was placed on probation a few times under Tark, and Fresno had a number of questionable recruits while Tarkanian was in charge. Hookers, pay for play, and academic improprieties were among the many accusations Tark's detractors pointed at him during his career.

The scandals that appear on the college basketball map are serious and need to be reported and understood. Many people involved with collegiate athletics have called for a de-emphasizing of the amateur status of college basketball players or having schools recruit athletes who are more adept to handle the academic load.

The likelihood is that the landscape of college basketball is not going to change much. CBS' contact to televise the NCAA tournament is in the billions of dollars. ESPN, ABC, FOX Sports, and other regional carriers and syndicators also have a hand in the pot. The overall image of college basketball takes a hit each time a scandal rears its ugly head, but the sports always perseveres and moves on.

When college hoops tips off again in November, we will hear Dickie V. telling us who is "awesome, baby," Clark Kellogg informing us of the stat-sheet-stuffers, and Bill Raftery telling the big fella to send it in.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.