Please don’t read too much into this. The Big East filed a motion in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court to have the case removed to U.S. Federal District Court. Contrary to the very ill-informed headline, the case has not been transferred at this time.

In the lawsuit, filed May 11, Pitt seeks damages for several transactions it has had to make in its effort to leave the Big East. It seeks repayment of $250,000, for instance, that it had to pay another school to buy out their contract to play a home football game, when it had to cancel that game to make room for new conference member Texas Christian University.

The Big East’s court filing Monday said that since the conference and the school are in different states, and the amount in dispute is substantial, the case should be heard in federal court.

It is really such a minor legal motion considering this case will never get to trial. We all know this suit was filed to force the Big East to get the matter settled.

Still, to misunderstand that it is a motion is stupid. Not to mention it does not mention which District Court they want the case removed to. Western District of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh)?  Rhode Island? The lack of any actual information is annoying, but I don’t care enough to dig. The only thing that a move to U.S. District Court would allow is to make it easier to join or for Syracuse to join the case.

The NCAA finally changed some of the rules for college basketball players in the summer. The old rule forbade any organized practicing overseen by the coaching staff. Some individualized sessions were allowed, but not the whole team at once.

The rationale was that summer practicing under the coaches control would make college sports too much like a professional sports system, and all the other justifications. This led to fascinating work-arounds. Like the head coach have his office built with big windows to oversee the practice court. And if he happened to be in the office when the kids came for their own voluntary practices, well, then he could stand and watch them through the class. And, hey, that banging on the glass by the coach wasn’t to get their attention. He just heard something on the TV that caused him to react.

The NCAA finally loosened the rules and allows the coach two whole hours a week to work with the entire team.

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