U losses and court cases abound, but where's embarrassment?

It's been quite a month in Dinkytown, a month of arrests, assaults, thefts, embarrassing losses, embarrassing victories and convenient memory lapses.

To culminate this Fall To Forget, Gopher Football Nation will load onto buses with brown-bag lunches their parents packed, eat orange slices, watch "Wizards of Waverly Place" and meander to Iowa to further the student-athletes' educational experience by exposing them to hundreds of miles of corn.

This month begs the question: Is anyone involved in the hierarchies of the University of Minnesota revenue sports capable of embarrassment?

Football coach Tim Brewster lost to a bad Illinois team at home, promised his boys would be ready for the South Dakota State Jackrabbits, required charitable contributions to beat the hated Jackrabbits, claimed any victory is a good victory, celebrated the Iowa bus trip that will include a potty break/cornfield walkabout and misremembered that his Illinois team lost to Iowa when he played at Kinnick Stadium.

Brewster is responsible for dismissing heralded offensive coordinator Mike Dunbar and replacing him with the unaccomplished Jedd Fisch, damaging his program, his job security and the career arc of his talented quarterback. Instead of mea culpas or realism, what we get from Brewster is vows to be ready for those Jackrabbits and odes to Iowa tourism.

He does not seem the least bit embarrassed.

Gophers hockey coach Don Lucia has taken a program capable of winning national championships and reduced expectations so drastically that he could excuse his team's 6-2 home loss to Bemidji State by noting that his son just missed a goal that would have made the score 2-2.

Mr. Lucia should have the good taste to let his cheeks redden a bit, especially after Bemidji State split with his team at Mariucci Arena and dropped in the national polls. The Gophers aren't even ranked.

Gophers basketball coach Tubby Smith has, in his third season on the job, assembled a deep roster and positioned a formerly underachieving program amid the top 25 in the nation.

For this year's team, he recruited one athlete who has been accused of assault and one who was arrested for shoplifting and assault.

I will defend Smith this far: As long as coaches are hired, fired and compensated according to winning percentages and revenues, I do not blame coaches for gambling on problematic but talented youngsters.

Carmelo Anthony grew up amid gangsters and drug dealers in Baltimore. He won a national championship for Syracuse and, despite a few behavioral glitches during his pro career, has matured into a wonderful player. Coach Jim Boeheim could have considered Anthony a risk; instead, he recognized that Anthony could give him the only national title of his career.

Even if you believe Mbakwe and White deserve the benefit of the doubt and due process, you should also recognize that Smith needs to be prepared to express embarrassment and cut ties if they are convicted. If you gamble and lose, you pay.

Perhaps the most interesting spectator sport at the U over the next two years will involve observing the psychic squirmings of athletic director Joel Maturi.

His hand-picked football coach has, to my knowledge, berated Maturi in front of Gophers players, and went against Maturi's wishes when he dismissed Dunbar. His hockey coach is presiding over a declining program. His basketball coach is recruiting players who could embarrass the university.

Now we know why Maturi spends so much time at cross-country meets and volleyball games -- to clear his tortured mind.