Columnist Dean Juipe: NCAA ‘owes’ UNLV for firing Bayno

Dean Juipe

Thursday, Dec. 14, 2000 | 10:58 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

Bill Bayno backed out of his meeting with the media Wednesday, which left the impression he had no intention of doing it in the first place.

Ostensibly, Bayno declined because he might be tempted to say something untoward or maybe even elaborate on this ridiculous notion of being reinstated. In reality, the initial announcement that he would have a few things to say was likely done to pacify the notebook and camera crowd a day earlier when it was starved to hear his reaction to being let go as UNLV's head basketball coach.

It's hardly a surprise that Bayno isn't anxious to defend himself. After all, former UNLV football coach Jim Strong still hasn't said a word about being fired since the day he departed in 1993.

Those who have taken up the task of defending Bayno for him have missed the mark. They say the coach can never be responsible for overseeing all of his players, yet Bayno had to know a booster was playing ball regularly in the North Gym with Lamar Odom and he didn't interfere. The booster, David Chapman, was a close friend of Bayno's and it was Chapman's financial gifts to Odom that brought the UNLV house down.

As such, sympathy for the departed coach is difficult to come by.

As for where he goes from here, Bayno's ace in the hole is the fact the man he worked for as an assistant at Massachusetts, John Calipari, is now at Memphis and may owe Bayno a favor. Otherwise, it would seem his basketball coaching future is bleak.

It will be ever bleaker if he files any sort of lawsuit against UNLV. From a distance, the school was well within its rights to let him go and he should respond accordingly. He could take UNLV's offer to work off his contract as a fund-raiser -- which is an unsupervised position that seems to attract ousted coaches -- or reach a financial settlement and get out of Dodge.

Challenging UNLV in court would brand Bayno with an 'X' he would never get off his forehead. He wouldn't be able to get a job sweeping the floors at Dixie Junior College.

Regardless of how his situation plays out, his firing does give UNLV a chance to have the NCAA reverse its ban on the Rebels participating in postseason play in 2001. There are two reasons why: UNLV fired Bayno on its own and not by edict of the NCAA; and barring UNLV from the Mountain West Conference tournament, which will be held in Las Vegas, harms the league as much as the Rebels.

UNLV president Carol Harter and athletic director Charlie Cavagnaro have both expressed their disappointment in the school not getting more credit from the NCAA for self-reporting much of the basketball program's troubles. They thought the NCAA came down hard on UNLV in spite of UNLV's cooperation.

But with Bayno fired and UNLV apt to meet the Dec. 27 deadline to appeal to the NCAA for some leniency, perhaps some leniency should be expected. Allowing the Rebels to compete in the Mountain West tourney (and perhaps advance beyond that to the NCAA Tournament or the NIT) is a reasonable trade-off for the university going the extra mile and giving Bayno the boot.