FanHouse KyleMcalarney

Maybe it wasn't a total shock that St. John's beat Notre Dame, 71-65, today. After all, as the upset began to take shape, an ESPN graphic pointed out that two of the teams' past three meetings had been decided by three points or less.

Still, that was misleading since ND beat St. John's handily last year. The prior year, the Irish were playing their first game without the suspended Kyle McAlarney. That third game in the nifty graphic was in 2005.

The reality is that this was a huge upset.

Sure, it was technically a road game for Notre Dame, and away from the comfort of the Joyce Center the Irish have not been particularly impressive. This was at Madison Square Garden, and for at least the first half, the game had the feel of at least being a neutral site game. As the game hit the second half, and Notre Dame continued to struggle, the large contingent of Irish fans grew much more quiet and pensive.

St. John's had lost three straight to teams not supposed to be as good as Notre Dame and had their best player, Anthony Mason, Jr., lost for the season early. Malik Boothe, the team's starting point guard, was out with a broken thumb. There just wasn't much going right for St. John's.

The 2008 Maui Invitational has come and gone with North Carolina stomping to the title.

North Carolina beat Notre Dame, 102-87, for the Maui championship. Tyler Hansbrough dropped in 34 points and tournament MVP Ty Lawson added 22 points and 11 assists. During this tournament, Lawson dished out 22 assists and turned the ball over just twice. Amazing.

The Heels flexed their muscle during the game. If not for Notre Dame's Kyle McAlarney nailing everything from everywhere in garbage time, this would have been another huge blowout.

North Carolina won all three games by an average of 29.7 points.

The '08 Maui Invitational will most likely be remembered for two things: blowouts and a missed half-court heave from Texas' D.J. Abrams against the Irish. Ten of the 12 games were decided by double digits; seven of which were decided by at least 18 points.

The Maui Classic has always been one of the must-see events of the early part of the college basketball season. You get to see coaches in Hawaiian shirts (picture Phil Martelli), beautiful bump shots of the beaches and some good hoops action.

This year's Invitational is no different. The No. 1 ranked North Carolina Tar Heels headline the event which begins today. But they aren't the only story to watch as six of the eight teams in Maui were in the NCAA Tournament last year:

North Carolina: The top ranked team is the favorite to win this thing but the Heels are coming in on shaky ground. Marcus Ginyard is still out as is Tyler Zeller who is done for the year with a broken wrist. The story will be Tyler Hansbrough's shin. He played Friday against UCSB but will see his minutes carefully monitored this week. If he does well, so will the Heels.

Notre Dame: Doesn't everyone want to see a matchup of Hansbrough and Luke Harangody? It could happen if the Irish get by the Texas Longhorns. The key to winning the Maui will be Mike Brey's coaching against some of the biggest names in the nation.

Everyone has been weighing in on the fact that ND point guard Kyle McAlarney was dismissed from ND and can't apply for re-admittance until after the summer semester. MJD pointed out the condemnation of the penalty from Garry Parrish from CBS Sportsline. The part that stinks is that they dragged out the decision -- though the fact that school was out of session the prior couple of weeks would be a factor in that. After all, this was the school's Student Affairs Committee. Not so easy to convene when there are members of the SAC on break. McAlarney was charged on December 28.

Still, a month later to decide put the kid in limbo. Mike DeCourcy at the Sporting News blasted the mother for being upset at the school.

When I first read Janice McAlarney was telling reporters she was "ashamed," I thought that was kind of a harsh comment to make in public about her son Kyle, the erstwhile starting point guard at Notre Dame.

Ah, but she wasn't talking about Kyle. After Notre Dame suspended him for the semester because of his arrest on marijuana possession charges, she told the Associated Press she was "ashamed of the university. My son is a great kid. He did not deserve this. The punishment did not fit the crime."

Given her attitude, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised McAlarney was arrested for marijuana possession after a policeman stopped his car because, he said, it was being driven erratically. The policeman smelled what he considered to be the odor of marijuana coming from the car, then searched and found a substance police said tested positive for the drug. And all of this happened in the middle of the season, by the way.

If a parent doesn't see this as a very big deal, I'm not sure how a child is going to.

Uhhh, that's a little unfair. Just like Parrish was being a bit unfair by floating the ND screwing McAlarney conspiracy theory (leave that to us tinfoil-wearing irresponsible bloggers).

The kid has to bear responsibility and pay the price. This is his mother, though, and they have been waiting a month to find out. She's probably had a month to kick his butt over the stupidity. He had started classes and was not denying responsibility. He had already gotten into a diversion program for first time offenders with the Prosecutor's office. Of course she would be upset to see him kicked out of school -- not simply suspended from the team. He is stuck taking the semester off and being at home.

The thing I had been wondering about was whether this was a typical decision from the ND SAC for similar violations of the du lac. That would go a lot further to determining the "fairness." ND blogger at Black and Green has an ambiguous answer.

Apparently you haven't heard that just about every other drug case ends up with a semester dismissal from Notre Dame. ND is not like a public school, it's not like Boston College, it's not like any other university in the world. True, this suspension is harsh. You should have thought about your punishment before you decided to light up.

So if this was typical, maybe this is not so out of proportion. Except that it is actually not a single semester suspension. It is two semesters. He can't apply for re-admittance to the summer session and try and catch up on a missed semester -- as pointed out in the comments.

I stand corrected. As of right now, K-Mac's summer suspension is in limbo. A two-semester suspension is harsher than most, although students are home over the Summer.

Unless they are taking summer classes. That's why there's a summer semester. As it stands now, at least three schools -- Xavier, Virginia and Michigan State -- are very interested in McAlarney considering their schools. At least ND doesn't have to worry about him transferring to a Big East school. The Big East has a prohibition on transfers from schools within the conference.

When I read that Notre Dame had kicked Kyle McAlarney not only off the basketball team, but out of school, for an entire semester ... I sort of thought it was an overreaction to a marijuana possession charge, chalked it up to a school being overprotective of their reputation, and forgot about it. But there was something I hadn't considered, a possibility that was raised today by Gary Parrish of CBS Sportsline.

Had Notre Dame ruled this way two weeks ago -- or perhaps even as late as last week -- McAlarney could've transferred to another institution, knocked out 15 hours and been eligible to resume his college career next December. But because the process dragged, transferring is no longer an option, and a cynic might suggest that was part of the plan all along.

Dismiss the player two weeks ago, you might lose him forever.

Dismiss the player now, his best option will be to seek readmittance at Notre Dame this summer.

Interesting.

Of course, I don't know that that's what Notre Dame was thinking. Maybe it just takes them a really long time to make decisions, I don't know. But I'd hate to think that they would willfully keep McAlarney out of any school for a full semester for their own selfish reasons.

And you can argue that McAlarney brought it upon himself, and you're right, he certainly did ... but that wouldn't excuse Notre Dame from acting with such little regard for the (ex) student's future.