FanHouse OJ Mayo

Allen Iverson needs to lay low for a while.

After establishing himself as a potential Hall of Fame guard, with offensive skills never before seen in the league and establishing himself as a perennial winner who's only flaw was that he was surrounded by insufficient backup, the last year has done a lot to tarnish that reputation. After being traded to Detroit he was an outright disaster, unable to find his place in the offense or in the locker room. Meanwhile the guard he was traded for, Chauncey Billups, lead his team to the Conference Finals.

As a free agent this summer, Iverson needs to go somewhere quietly and rebuild his image, much the same way that his old coach Larry Brown has in Charlotte. But it might be another small market team Iverson ends up with. One that now features an... eclectic makeup of personalities.

Iverson might be headed South for the Winter.

It has not been a stellar year of headlines for Calvin Andrews of BDA. Earlier this year, after the O.J. Mayo-USC-Ronald Guillory story blew up, Andrews -- who allegedly paid Guillory to deliver Mayo to his client list -- was dropped by the Memphis guard and then suspended from agenting activities for a year by the NBA Players Association. This suspension is more of public slap on the wrist than anything -- rumors abound that Andrews is the real agent for top prospects including Hasheem Thabeet, who is listed as a BDA client. (The policing of the agents is a complete joke, in other words.)

But here's a karmic punishment that works: Carmelo Anthony, Andrews' top client by far, has reportedly dropped BDA to move over to CAA, the agency led by Leon Rose and attached to William Wesley.

Like or loathe the NCAA, this much is certain about this unique, voluntary association that houses the largest collegiate athletic organization in the world:

It's good to be the King -- and royalty certainly works at its own pace and plays by its own rules.

Following Thursday's announcement that 16 teams at the University of Alabama have been penalized for their involvement in improperly obtaining free textbooks for other students, three high-profile NCAA investigations are currently on the books for fans to score at their leisure.

Every Monday during college football's endless offseason, The FanHouse Walk will put last week's stories to bed and deliver the essentials to bridge that agonizing space between now and September.

Rap, Rap, Rapping At The Door -- Bad news is best delivered on Friday, so no surprise when it was discovered that in the new BCS contract the Rose Bowl must fill one of its slots to a non-BCS team (think Boise State or Utah) if it loses either the Big 10 or Pac-10 champion to the BCS championship game.

There are the Rose Bowl haters out there snarking away on this, but I think its another sad day for college football. Everyone bemoans the USC/Illinois type matchups in Pasadena, but I still find it fresh and what the Rose Bowl is all about. The various Miami/Nebraka, Texas/Michigan, USC/Texas type matchups were all enjoyable, but something has never felt right about them.

Thank goodness for Georgia Tech basketball coach Paul Hewitt, a historically gifted recruiter who has been allergic to scandal. He represents a segment of his profession that could squeeze inside a foul lane.

Duplicity and college basketball are now one. I mean, if you name a program that has acquired a bigger-than-life player in recent years (Memphis and Southern Cal come to mind), it's like this: The odds are greater than Dick Vitale screaming into a microphone that such a program is destined for the NCAA slammer.

Hewitt disagrees. For one, he is high profile as president of the Black Coaches and Administrators and as a veteran of the Atlantic Coast Conference. So if he decided to shove a few of his peers under the bus, others would roll the wheels back and forth across his tongue.

"With the first pick in the 2008 NBA draft, the Chicago Bulls select Derrick Rose from the University of Memphis."

That's what NBA commissioner David Stern said 11 months ago. Now, the NCAA apparently thinks that someone else took Rose's SAT college entrance exam for him, helping him to be eligible at Memphis.

It started at Sonny Vaccaro's ABCD Basketball Camp, a camp, yes, but also a meet-and-greet for street agents and young, impressionable kids. Street agents, runners, slimeball AAU coaches all start getting their hands on our kids early, and ...

"The only problem I have is the word 'slime,' '' Vaccaro said. "A lot of what you say is right. But why is that word only connected to AAU? You've got to define what that means and who you're talking about. When you say slime, that envelopes everybody."

Yes, OK. Well, Rodney Guillory met 15-year old basketball phenom O.J Mayo at the camp in 2003.

On behalf of David Feherty, I'd like to apologize for the following column. It again takes shots at House Mis-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, not to mention her fellow victims of CIA subterfuge, Roger Clemens, Tim Floyd and Mine That Bird.

Who knew the CIA was plotting to overthrow the Preakness? You will after reading the latest installment of Week in Review.

It just doesn't stop, with these slimeballs. The whole Tim Floyd story just slips and slides right off the page. Floyd, the USC basketball coach, is accused of giving $1,000 to get stud recruit O.J. Mayo a few years ago.

Another coach, another envelope of cash. But did you see the details?

Because we keep getting more examples of dirty coaches, but then we shake our heads and ignore, basically, what went into making that sausage.

Lloyd Lake understood his civil suit against former Southern Cal running back and 2005 Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush and his family could be a long and arduous legal process. The suit over alleged benefits remains unsettled since it was filed in San Diego County Court in October 2007.

Tuesday's news that NCAA investigators appear to be building a case to show that USC has demonstrated a lack of institutional control and failure to monitor some aspects of its football and men's basketball programs did not surprise San Diego attorney Brian Watkins, a lawyer for Lake.