UMass forced Bruiser Flint to resign after similar successes as those recorded by Lappas, after similar disenchantment by boosters and a similar cave-in by athletic director Bob Marcum. Taking over after a scandal involving Marcus Camby and John Calipari erased UMass' 1996 Final Four appearance from the record books, Flint won 86 games over five seasons and put his team into postseason tournaments in three of those years. That took a lot of work to get out from under that. I mean, we're getting off the wall here. The convenient answer is television.
Television pumps billions of dollars into the tournament.
Just as important, though, television helps define the success of a school. Only a handful of college teams appeared on television until the spread of cable, Carolina's Smith recalled yesterday. The interest factor is huge. And any time there's interest, there's pressure. Jerry Green's stormy tenure at Tennessee is one glaring example of that.