The First Shoe Drops at Southern Cal

Let's leap to the obvious conclusion: Tim Floyd's sudden resignation in the wake of accusations he provided a direct cash payment to one of OJ Mayo's handlers -- what is this, 1950? -- represents a tacit admission of guilt on the part of USC. NCAA punishment of some variety is sure to follow, and the USC basketball program will return to the dust from whence it sprang. If you require Floyd's hilariously truthy exit statement to be dismembered, The Dagger has you covered. 

Naturally, the zealots at Bruins Nation are overjoyed:

It will be interesting to see the spin coming out from the Trojan apologists who have been going through all kinds of hilarious mental gymnastics to make excuses for Floyd last few weeks [See for example the hecktacular cutting and pasting spin job from Adam Rose, who is now working OT to spin Carroll out of his current PR mess]

Oddly, they raise the specter of Jamie Dixon as the new head coach ... you know, the guy in charge of a program that 1) spent a large chunk of this year No. 1 and 2) isn't about to get a flamethrower from the NCAA. This will not happen. If there's any justice in the world USC will be forced to hire Brian Ellerbe.

But this is where the skepticism about the NCAA's will to punish goes: even if the NCAA drops the hammer here, NCAA hammers are soft nubbly things that take little time to recover from. Michigan's long wander in the wilderness was due more to their own institutional incompetence under Tom Goss than a one-year postseason ban and scholarship penalties that ended up spanning all of two years. Similarly, Indiana's spectacular cratering was more due to the departure of Kelvin Sampson's cynical crew and more of that institutional incompetence than anything the NCAA did. Indiana even got to backdate APR penalties caused by the exodus, thereby compressing their punishments into their one ugly year.

If the NCAA really wants to put some teeth into enforcement they need to start dragging penalties out over an extended period of time. I suspect just about everyone would like to see USC, which participated in breathtaking institutional cynicism here, saddled with penalties that would make its basketball program a no-man's land for a the next decade -- significant scholarship penalties at the least, coupled with providing USC players carte blanche to transfer. I also suspect this sort of thing will not happen.

Unless, of course, this helps push the NCAA to the larger conclusion. Floyd falling on his sword is a white flag waved months too late and brings the Trojans within one or two breaks in this forever-and-ever-amen Reggie Bush case from the dreaded "lack of institutional control" declaration, which is supposedly so fierce you could  be forgiven for thinking "dreaded" was part of the term. USC is now one step closer to the (temporary, bouncy-ball filled) abyss.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.