Jul
12
Some familiar names to college basketball fanatics and Final Four history buffs surfaced in the news on Thursday for much different reasons.
Former Illinois great Dee Brown, a star on the school’s 37-2 team that lost to North Carolina in the 2005 NCAA title game, looks like he will be making his way back into the NBA, while controversial former Florida guard Teddy Dupay, a member of the Gators 2000 national-runner up team, could eventually be headed for prison if convicted on a recent rape charge.
After spending the last year playing professionally in Turkey and averaging 12.3 points per game for club team Galatasaray, Brown signed to a two-year offer sheet from the Washington Wizards on Thursday.
While the Utah Jazz still retain the rights to Brown — whom they drafted with the 46th pick in the second round of the 2006 NBA Draft — it has been reported in the Washington Post that the team will not match the Wizards offer within the stipulated seven-day time period, which hardly comes as a surprise.
According to what I’ve heard in the past from sources I trust, Brown was not a favorite of Utah Head Coach Jerry Sloan during his rookie season with the Jazz in 2006-2007, when he averaged 1.9 points and 1.7 minutes in scant minutes
Sloan apparently did not like Brown’s alleged influence on his former college teammate Deron Williams. Apparently, this opinion was also shared by Jazz owner Larry Miller, especially with Brown, Williams, Ronnie Brewer and Paul Millsap being cleared of what were very shady rape accusations in early 2007.
Regardless of whether Brown was liked by Jazz management and that was a reason he wasn’t guaranteed a roster spot at the start of last season, he was a fan favorite in Utah like he was in Champaign-Urbana and should be in D.C., where he will team with Gilbert Arenas to give Wizards Head Coach Eddie Jordan two larger-than-life-
Unfortunately continuing on the topic of rape, former Florida Gators guard Teddy Dupay has been charged with allegedly beating and raping a woman at a Utah ski resort in June, according to an Associated Press report that also came out on Thursday.
Dupay was a starter on Florida’s surprising 2000 team that made it all the way to the Final Four as a five seed before losing to Michigan State in a championship final that many MSU fans remember best for when the sophomore guard committed a hard foul in the second half on Spartans star Mateen Cleeves, who severely rolled his ankle on the play.
The following season when Florida traveled to Michigan State for an early non-conference tilt, Spartans fans mercilessly booed Dupay each and every time he touched the ball, remembering that controversial moment in the 2000 championship game. And following that junior season, Dupay would be kicked off the basketball team after he allegedly asked fellow students to bet on Florida games for him.
While never being criminally charged with gambling violations, Dupay was officially charged last week with felony rape, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping for an alleged June 19 incident that left a woman he once dated with a plethora of injuries, including two fractured ribs, bruises on her arm, shoulder and thigh, a swollen left eye and scratches on her back.
Dupay has reportedly denied that rape took place, but did acknowledge in court documents that things “got a little rough” with the woman, a statement that may not be legally damning but certainly does little for his already controversial reputation.
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