Do interims deserve credit for wins? Other notes

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Nearly everyone knows University of San Francisco coach Eddie Sutton officially will go for his 800th career victory Saturday against St. Mary's.But were it not for an administrative choice two years ago, he officially could be at 795 wins. Or were it not for another administrative decision this season, he officially could be at 798 wins with no chance of reaching 800 this season. Were both decisions different, Sutton would be sitting on 794 victories the rest of this season.Wait a second. A win is a win, right? The guy coaching gets credit for the victory, and that's that. Isn't it?Well, no, not when a leave of absence is involved.When Sutton took a leave of absence at Oklahoma State toward the end of the 2006 season after being cited for DUI following a car accident, his son, Sean, took over the team for the rest of the season. When a change is made because of a leave of absence, the school gets to decide which coach gets credit for the wins -- either the coach on leave or the interim coach who takes his place.Typically, the interim coach gets the credit, but Oklahoma State decided to give the wins to Eddie Sutton. The Cowboys won four more games under Sean Sutton that season, and they were given to Eddie, even though it generally was believed Eddie Sutton would not return and Sean Sutton would be given the job on a permanent basis. And that's what happened.When USF coach Jessie Evans was relieved of his duties, it officially was called a leave of absence. In fact, athletic director Debra Mann-Gore said for the record that Evans could get the job back, although nobody expects that to happen.The NCAA communicated with USF to see whether it wanted Evans or Sutton, his replacement, to get the subsequent USF victories, according to Gary Johnson, the NCAA's associate director of statistics. USF did the opposite of what Oklahoma State did, deciding instead to credit the wins to Sutton, the interim coach, who since has said he will not stay after this season. Any USF wins the rest of this season could have been credited to Evans if USF had chosen to do so.Arizona coach Lute Olson is on a leave of absence, and Arizona technically could have credited the 12 wins the Wildcats have this season to Olson, who then would have 792 career wins. However, Arizona is crediting those wins to Kevin O'Neill, who has been the team's acting head coach virtually the entire season.There are no plans to standardize NCAA policy on tabulating wins during a leave of absence, Johnson said, but it seems like letting a baseball team decide which of its pitchers should get credit for a win.-- MIDSEASON FIRINGS: Two more Division I coaches bit the dust this past week. Pepperdine's Vance Walberg resigned Thursday with no warning, citing family and personal concerns. According to the Los Angeles Times, the athletic department had been talking to players about Walberg's treatment of them. There was even mention of one incident in which Walberg made a since-departed player suck his thumb during practice because he was acting like a baby. Athletic director John Watson told the Times that was not the reason for Walberg's resignation.Then on Sunday, Oregon State fired Jay John and replaced him on a interim basis with assistant Kevin Mouton, who then kicked starting center C.J. Giles off the team."His past behaviors, in my view, made it a situation where there would have been issues going forward with the way we need to run the program," Mouton said.Giles has missed a practice and been late to another this season, among other things.-- IVY WEIRDNESS: Remember when Penn and Princeton used to dominate the Ivy League? Well, they look like doormats this season. Penn, which plays Temple Wednesday night, is 5-11, including a 60-30 loss to Florida Gulf Coast when the Quakers went scoreless for the first 13:15 of the game.Princeton (2-12) is worse. The Tigers have lost 12 in a row, including a loss to Chaminade. Princeton is making sure it ends that skid, because its next game is against Dominican (N.Y.), a Division II school that has a loss to Stonehill College and will prepare for Sunday's game against Princeton by playing home games against Felician College Wednesday night and the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia on Saturday.(E-mail Jake Curtis at jcurtis@sfchronicle.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)