UCLA Basketball Embarrassment

Legendary UCLA  basketball coach John Wooden must be turning in his grave. Today, three UCLA basketball players who had been charged with shoplifting by Chinese police in Hangzhou, China sat before a press conference in Westwood and read prepared statements expressing remorse for what they had done and accepting their indefinite suspensions. The three players, LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, should consider themselves very lucky.

It appears that President Trump and the State Department did all they could to secure the players’ release. As it is, the charges have been dismissed. One can only wonder how the Chinese would have treated three Chinese citizens charged with a similar crime-or even three normal American tourists. (The three young men were with the UCLA basketball team, which was playing in China.)

Theoretically speaking, anyone who travels to a foreign country is subject to the laws of that country. The Chinese court and penal systems are generally tougher than the US. The players should have known that when they got on the plane to go over there.  Technically, the Chinese had every right to hold the players, try them, and send them off to jail for whatever their law dictated. The only responsibility of the US Embassy in Beijing had was to provide them with regular visits and ensure that they received the same rights and treatment as Chinese citizens received.

However……..

The fact that these were college basketball players participating in sporting events in China played in their favor. One of the players, LiAngelo Ball, is part of the newly-famous Ball family of players and their big mouth father, who was probably being kept locked up and gagged by UCLA lest he shoot off his mouth and anger the Chinese so much they would throw the book at his son.

So here we have President Trump already in Asia at a regional summit together with the Chinese president. The rest is history. Is it right? Is there equal justice for all? Obviously not. The Chinese can lock up their people and execute them all they want, but in a high profile international situation with diplomacy and international scrutiny of their justice system involved, they would prefer to compromise.

But what should UCLA do? The only question now is how long will the indefinite suspension last? 
If say, these players are back in uniform after five games, then the whole thing is a joke. Personally, I would be outraged if they appear in another game this season. They not only forgot the old adage- when you go to another country, you are an  ambassador for your country- they brought disgrace to the UCLA basketball program, once the class of the nation, and they brought disgrace to UCLA as an institution. If I were the chancellor of UCLA, these three guys would be looking for a new university to practice their basketball skills.

But I am not the chancellor of UCLA. That position is occupied by Gene Block, a feckless hack who has seen his university embarrassed time and time again by radical professors and radical students. Over the ten years this site has been in existence, I have written far too many articles about the nonsense occurring on that campus-including anti-semitic harassment of Jewish students, which has been tolerated far too long.

I expect that well before the season is over, these three players will be back on the floor. After all, that’s what UCLA is all about.