Sex Scandal Rocks

Reeling from the strip-club scandal that led to the expulsion of one player and the high probability of two more, St. Johns featured a cut-and-paste line-up Sunday afternoon against Boston College that hardly resembled a team once considered the pinnacle of New York Citys proud basketball heritage. After all, this was a program that captured the National Invitation Tournament championship just last season and planned on using that minor success as a catalyst for the future.
But the fall from grace has left St. Johns bloodied.
With only eight players at his disposal, interim head coach Kevin Clark is now forced to make do with what remains: a band of players more familiar with the bench than the basketball court. Despite a surprisingly tough effort in the face of adversity, a lack of experiencenot to mention talentwas evident on Sunday as BC battered St. Johns, 89-61, at Madison Square Garden. The game was witnessed by a sparse crowd of 7,453.
Clark, who took over for Mike Jarvis when the latter was relieved of his duties earlier this season, probably never imagined his stint as interim head coach would be marred by a sex scandal. But thats exactly what happened in Pennsylvania on February 5 after St. Johns was embarrassed by the Pittsburgh Panthers, 71-51.
That evening, a group of players, apparently celebrating starting point guard Elijah Ingrams 20th birthday, violated team policy by breaking curfew and leaving their hotel room for Club Exotica, a strip club located just outside Pittsburgh. While there, the players met a 38-year-old woman and negotiated to bring her back to the team hotel and pay her for sex.
After, when the players refused to pay the womans fee, she went to the police, claiming she was raped. A video taken by one of the players on a camera phone, however, discredited the womans story and the players were subsequently released by Pittsburgh police.
Of the three players involved, only Grady Reynolds was expelled immediately, primarily because the incident marked his second transgression at St. Johns in as many years. The other two, Ingram and Abe Keita, will have their status with the university determined today by the schools disciplinary hearing board, a panel comprised of both students and faculty. Three othersLamont Hamilton, Mohamed Diakite, and Tyler Joneshave already been suspended by university officials.
The hearings are in progress according to Jody Fisher, the schools director of public relations, who added, "We are seeking to expel Ingram and Keita."
And just when you thought St. Johns 2003-04 season couldnt get any uglier, it did. On Saturday, the Rev. Donald J. Harrington, the president of St. Johns, spoke to the media for the first time since the incident and promptly paralleled the Jarvis era with the dramatics currently flaring in Jamaica. Harrington refrained from directly attributing the downfall of the program to the former coach, but tacitly linked the culture of rule-bending to the Jarvis regimes alleged failure to discipline players.
"I think St. Johns stood its ground by expelling the players involved. At least some action was taken. I think it was a positive," said Kim Douglas, a senior at St. Johns who was in attendance for Sundays loss to BC.
St. Johns is 5-14 overall and 0-8 in the Big East.