Arizona Basketball: Scott Van Pelt says he was wrong, Dick Vitale gives praises

Arizona Basketball is now ranked No. 19 in the AP Poll released on Monday morning. ESPN Media are coming around, one has said he was wrong.

Things are looking up for Arizona Basketball after trouncing the Illinois Illini by 21 points and increased their win streak to three, even ESPN media are flipping the script.

According to TeamWork Online: “After beating Illinois 90-69 yesterday, Arizona is now projected to finish the regular season 23-6 (13-5 Pac-12). The odds that the Wildcats make the NCAA tournament are up to 96%, an increase of 5% since yesterday. We currently rank Arizona as the #8 team in the country, and the #1 team in the Pac-12. We project the Wildcats with a 51% chance to make the Sweet Sixteen and a 15% chance to reach the Final Four.”

It’s been a couple of seasons since Mark Schlabach’s damning article was published by ESPN condemning the entire program and setting off a stream of horrific predictions for Sean Miller and his program. After many in Tucson corrected Schlabach on the dates in the post regarding Ayton signing his NLI in 2016 and the supposed conversation to pay him taking place in 2017, several corrections were made in the back pages of ESPN.com.

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ESPN also misreported Miller’s contract details saying Miller would get paid double if fired with cause (per Anne Ryman of AZCentral) which Darren Rovell also Tweeted. On top of all that, an ESPN announcer, during an ASU Vs. OSU game reported BREAKING NEWS that Miller was let go. Another false report that local Arizona newsman Cameron Cox (12News.com) called them out on.

Dan Patrick seemed to be the lone voice talking about possible lawsuits stemming from the misreporting.

Wildcat fan Michael Kinter called out Van Pelt on March 13th after he heard him say, “It’s impossible for me to see Sean Miller continuing at Arizona.” Again with the prediction.

I couldn’t help but chime in and sum it up for Van Pelt, so he understood where Wildcats fans were coming from, he seemed like a reasonable guy. “This is the crux of the exasperation of UA Wildcats fans @notthefakeSVP, Vitale & others only target Arizona when it comes to the FBI investigation, not Duke, etc- there’s proof w/texts from Self at Kansas, crickets-3 other Asst coaches plead guilty, only AZ is slung thru the mud.”

The outlet or the ESPN announcers pointing the finger at Tucson never publically pulled back or apologized for convicting the program of wrongdoing without evidence and based on hearsay. Until today. After the Arizona win over Illinois, Scott Van Pelt says he was wrong.

Dick Vitale, who ZonaZealots and Wildcats fans have fought with tooth and nail, has also started coming around. We finally figured out that one of his motivations was to help out Bobby Hurley at ASU (he was singing his praises live on Twitter). Vitale just bumped up Arizona to No. 12 and he responded to one of our Tweets with a positive thought. In another Tweet said basically said he was done talking about it, “Unless something new breaks from hoops scandal I am shutting it down talking about Arizona, etc Will wait to see what @NCAA does after completing their investigation. I am tired of it will see how the info is handled.”

Jay Bilas, Duke Alumni, and former assistant coach jumped the gun at the start and stated that Miller and Deandre Ayton would never work in college basketball again. Mind you there was no evidence except hearsay and an article from ESPN’s Mark Schlabach.

Seth Greenberg after bashing Arizona for losing to Buffalo in the NCAA tournament said Miller “Not getting fired for coaching” but still assumed he was getting fired. He talked about his relationship with Miller on College GameDay, assuming that the allegations were evidence and facts to lead him to have to “Pay the consequence” and he called for Miller to be put on administrative leave.

Greenberg took the erroneous report from Mark Schlabach and publicly delivered a guilty verdict on Sean Miller. He should apologize.

Jeff Goodman and I had an exchange on Twitter recently. I strongly feel that because the media focused on Arizona alone with the assistant coach bribery part of the FBI investigation, the judges threw only Book Richardson in jail while three other assistant coaches were accused of the same crime.

Goodman is starting to see a little error or bias in his ways:

And finally Mark Schlabach, who may be a victim of his editors and management at ESPN. The ESPN management decided to double down on Schlabach’s reports, having him churn out a second report based on the first. Schlabach used to Tweet all the time, but not so much anymore due to constant harassment by Arizona Basketball fans, as it should be. Someone has to hold these guys accountable. Time to apologize.

Let’s not give Yahoo Sports Pat Forde a pass. He blew wind into the embers doing the same thing that Schlabach did which is to get clicks and people talking about an old report about a conversation that had no proof to back it up dragging a player through the mud once again. Time to apologize.

Goodman is new to the public predictions about Sean Miller’s demise, but he will feel the wrath of Arizona Wildcats fans if he continues just like Vitale, Schlabach, Greenberg, and Bilas. Time for apologies folks!