He sparred with reporters. He defended his record. He brushed off criticism as part of the job.
NCAA President Mark Emmert spent 15 minutes documenting the progress that the organization has made under his leadership, from making sure students go to class to fighting corruption.
Ignore all those headlines about botched investigations, questionable leadership, allegations of grade-changing and athletes loading up on "soft" courses to stay eligible.
March is played under the charade of amateurism, with enough shameless mentions of "student-athletes" to make you spit your beverage back into that NCAA-regulated cup while they further their university's educational mission hundreds of miles from campus classrooms.
It's a short walk from the MGM Grand sports book _ where the odds on Saturday favored Oregon by two points over UCLA _ to the arena where the Pac-12 Conference basketball tournament was contested. Timed just right, a fan could have sneaked away at halftime to place a bet on his favorite school and still made it back before play resumed.
For all the high-minded talk of reform and accountability, a 19-member group of college presidents, athletics directors and conference commissioners went all-in with a failed president and, by association, a broken system.
The folks at the NCAA finally got around to charging the University of Miami with a lack of institutional control, and if there's one thing you can be confident they still know something about, that's it. No phrase better describes the way the NCAA has gone about its business during the brief tenure of President Mark Emmert.
The Miami debacle is the latest example of the NCAA's departure from reality, an organization founded to protect the on-field safety of athletes now bravely shielding them from evils like free tattoos and being paid to sign autographs.
The NCAA says that the information it collected as part of the Miami investigation through depositions performed as part of a former booster's bankruptcy proceedings will not be part of the case against the Hurricanes.
