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We are into the 44th season of the Larry Brown Show, and the plot never changes. If you are surprised that one of the game’s greatest minds is in NCAA trouble again, you haven’t been paying attention for the last few decades. Brown simply does not have the kind of personality to follow NCAA rules. Coaches who follow the rules understand that doing so might cost them a recruit, or might cost a player his eligibility, and therefore might mean a down year for their team. You have to be patient, put your personal ethical code above professional gain, and trust that things will eventually work out. That’s not Brown. Of all the great coaches in basketball history, he is the neediest. Brown’s on-court success has been built on his relentless attention to detail. He does not have any magic formula. He just coaches every little bit of the game a little better than almost everybody else. His players succeed because he convinces them there is no shortcut to success. But this is the hypocrisy of Larry Brown: Once he steps off the court, he looks for shortcuts everywhere. Academic misconduct is a shortcut. Anybody who has ever cheated on a paper could tell you that. It’s what you do when you didn’t do the work and you can’t accept the consequences. Lying to the NCAA? Also a shortcut. Brown reveres his college coach, Dean Smith, but he never learned Smith’s most important lesson: How you win is more important than how much you win. Of course Brown lied to the NCAA. He lies to himself all the time. That whole history teacher bit is a lie to himself. When the NCAA was descending upon his star recruit, Emmanuel Mudiay, for academic and eligibility reasons, Brown could not admit Mudiay left for China for those reasons. Instead, he released a statement insisting "This is not an academic issue, since he has been admitted to SMU, but rather a hardship issue.” read more: http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2015/09/29/larry-brown-suspension-smu-postseason-ban LARRY BROWN at final NCAA hearing: "But I realize, you know in hindsight that was a terrible mistake on my part. I wish I could have changed all that. But we had that interview with the NCAA, I don't know why I lied. You know, dealing with people that I really care about, and I used terrible judgment, and I tried to acknowledge that as quickly as I could, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. I realize that"

Larry Brown is attempting to weather the storm. SMU's coach is currently dealing with an NCAA investigation as he prepares for his fourth season as the leader of the Mustangs' program. CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein talked with Brown to discuss the NCAA investigation, the new rules in college basketball, and much more. Jon Rothstein, CBS Sports: What has it been like for you over the last few weeks after the report surfaced about the potential results of the NCAA investigation? Larry Brown: It's hurt us with a lot of kids in recruiting indirectly because people kill you. It's the second time that there's been a leak like that. When you're being investigated nobody is supposed to know. We self-imposed a bunch of penalties the first time this happened. Our school suspended Ulric (Maligi), who was an assistant at the time and then they brought up all this stuff about me which isn't accurate. I happened to be the coach at UCLA when a decision was made against the program, but I wasn't involved with anything except for cleaning things up. They always write that -- that I was involved with bad things at UCLA -- and then at the end of the article they say I was never charged with anything. But nobody reads that. And then this last thing -- we've been waiting six months for a hearing and we finally had a hearing, but when you leave the hearing you have to sign a pledge not to let any of this information leak. It leaked and the article even had the schedule -- golf met first and then basketball met next. It came at such a critical time because we were in the middle of recruiting. Kids are trying to decide on things and what schools they should visit. We've lost three or four kids than I thought we had a legitimate chance with and none of them were fully admitted, but the fact that all of a sudden we're not involved makes me think that the same stuff is happening again. But we'll get through it. I found out that this investigation was happening on July 26 last year and I just want to get it behind us. Look I've got my team back. Keith (Frazier) is eligible and Markus (Kennedy) is eligible. We've got to build on that. CBS Sports: You've always been someone who's wanted to do what's right for the game. How much do you personally think about your long-term legacy when you're associated with something like this? Brown: It bothers me. I don't like it, but at the end of the day there's so many other things going on. The bottom line at the end of the day is this: I'm 75 and I'm still coaching. I'm watching our program grow. I've got a lot of people that I know that are working and doing pretty well. So, I'm not going to be concerned with that. I'm just going to keep doing what I do and try to get better. CBS Sports: Are you anticipating a suspension heading into next season? Brown: I don't want to comment about that. I kind of want to focus on the good things we're doing here. It seems the school is really excited about what we've done and we've got some really good kids. We're all pretty proud about they've done and what they've accomplished. Hopefully we're going to be pretty good this year. read more: http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/25273239/qa-smu-coach-larry-brown-on-ncaa-lack-of-respect-for-aac

If they like old guys, hiring Mack should be a no-brainer. Mack picked UT up off the ground and made it a national contender every year. He can do the same at SMU, which has money, resources, and — as the only school of note in Dallas — has a tremendous recruiting advantage. In fact, it’s a crime that SMU doesn’t own Dallas-area recruiting. It should be able to lock that city down. (Editor’s note: See North Texas’ 43-6 win as an example that SMU doesn’t own it.) This advice comes with a caveat. Mack isn’t your long-term coach. Mack is your Big Splash, Resuscitate The Program hire. After his first 10-win season, fire him and bring in a much younger guy. Read more: http://blog.mysanantonio.com/roy-bragg/2014/09/mack-brown-to-smu-it-could-work/

Really surprised me... thought they were deserving the analysts are saying it's due to their non conference schedule...

UNIVERSITY PARK — The NCAA pronounced the SMU Mustangs guilty by association Sunday. Guilty of association with the new American Athletic Conference. There were five basketball teams from the fledgling AAC in the final Associated Press basketball poll last week: No. 5 Louisville, No. 13 Cincinnati, No. 19 Memphis, No. 21 Connecticut and No. 25 SMU. Four of those teams were extended invitations Sunday to participate in the 68-team NCAA Tournament. SMU was not and will settle for the National Invitation Tournament, in which it will host UC Irvine in a first-round game Wednesday night. “At the end of the day, I don’t think they felt our conference was worthy of having five teams in,” SMU coach Larry Brown said. Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/columnists/rick-gosselin/20140316-gosselin-smu-suffers-because-american-athletic-conference-an-afterthought-in-ncaa-tournament.ece

http://smu.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1360486

Read more: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/7931989/a-look-coaching-hire-college-basketball

For the first time ever, all three schools hired new coaches in the same off-season. You’d have to go back to 1975 to find the last time two of the schools hired new coaches the same year, much less three. And that’s great news for high school basketball in Dallas, Fort Worth and all the suburbs that surround the two hubs of the Dallas area. The stakes have been raised. All three coaches — Larry Brown at SMU, Trent Johnson at TCU and Tony Benford at North Texas — plan to make local talent an emphasis in their recruiting. “I was shocked when I saw the talent here,” Brown said. “I’ve seen some kids who are pretty special. I don’t know that we have a chance [at them], but I don’t want to lower the bar for us.” Don’t look for any of the three new coaches to lower the bar. Brown has the cachet. He’s the only coach in history to have won an NCAA and NBA title and has already been enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. What recruit isn’t going to answer the door when Larry Brown comes a knocking? Johnson has been selected coach of the year in three different conferences — the WAC (Nevada) in 2003, Pac-10 (Stanford) in 2008 and SEC (LSU) in 2009. He’s taken teams to five NCAA Tournaments and reached a pair of Sweet 16s. What recruit isn’t going to answer the door when Johnson comes a knocking? This is the first head coaching opportunity for Benford, but he arrives in Texas with a slight edge over Brown and Johnson. His primary recruiting responsibility over the last 20 seasons as an assistant at New Mexico, Arizona State, Nebraska and Marquette has been the state of Texas. Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/college-sports/headlines/20120510-gosselin-new-smu-tcu-unt-basketball-coaches-to-pan-area-for-gold.ece