What’s the deal with college basketball lately? Scandals have swept through the NCAA in the past week at Villanova and at both Georgia and Rhode Island.

But perhaps the most interesting story of all came when players at St. Bonaventure last week voted to forfeit their last two games of the season and stop playing after their conference (the Atlantic 10) suspended them from the conference tournament at the end of the season.

In other words, they quit. And their coaches and administration let them.

Then I thought: Maybe it’s not a bad idea and quitting is the answer.

Perhaps the Sacramento Kings should just quit: They can’t beat the Lakers in the playoffs, right? So why even play? But without the Kings, the NBA playoffs would have been right up there with MMW 4 as some of the most boring stuff I could have done during my time here at UCSD.

UCLA should definitely quit. They have to play No. 1 Arizona in the first round of the Pac-10 tournament. Their coach probably wouldn’t mind.

Maybe after I got a “”C”” on the last paper I write for a difficult class, I should just quit the class.

The problem is that the players at St. Bonaventure didn’t have a proverbial “”W”” dropped on them by the school. The gutless administration and staff let this happen and people are losing thier jobs.

“”I said we have to play, but they said they need to hear it from the administration as to why this was happening,”” said Bonnies’ head coach Jan van Breda Kolff, who’s been placed on administrative leave.

The players were frustrated when a player on their team was ruled ineligible because he didn’t really earn an associate’s degree.

Van Breda Kolff and the rest of the administration didn’t mind when the players refused to play.

“”My heart goes out to the players,”” said former St. Bonaventure President Robert J. Wickenheiser.

Wickenheiser has since been fired over the incident.

“”I spoke with one of the players last evening, and he shared with me the feelings of hurt and confusion the team has about not being able to play in the tournament,”” Wickenheiser said. “”I very much sympathize with the emotions they are feeling at this time.””

At a time when the young men on the St. Bonaventure basketball team needed leadership to guide them through a trying time, isn’t it nice to know that the school has such kind and sympathetic leaders?

The bottom line is that people (athletes or not) with great minds don’t often quit. Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player ever, tried. Twice. He’s still playing because of the drive he has to play basketball.

Apparently, that kind of drive is unknown to the people at St. Bonaventure.