The National, 6/12/12: Bitter Pills.

Keystone Kops: Last night, thanks to the excellent work of the Montgomery Advertiser's Jay Tate, we were treated to a running Twitter play-by-play of the attempt by Auburn and Montgomery Police, the FBI, and the U.S. Marshal Service to apprehend Desmonte Leonard, the suspect in Saturday night's shootings at Auburn. To say that the operation didn't go well (at least in terms of the sort of operation you want getting live coverage) would be understating it. Police received a pair of 911 calls, one from an occupant of the house in question, leading them to a suburban home in Montgomery. Tear gas was fired, and a comprehensive search of the house was undertaken, with sources reporting that police were certain there was a conscious and mobile human being in the attic.

Not so much. It seems that in the fifteen minutes between the 911 call and police arrival on the scene, Leonard (if he was, indeed, truly there at all) fled.

Today, there have been press conferences with the Auburn chief of police, the mayor of Montgomery, and now Auburn coach Gene Chizik. Leonard is still at large, and police statements seem to be focusing more in reminding citizens of the penalties for providing misleading information than anything else. It brings up the question of just how sophisticated the equipment being used by law enforcement last night actually was, insofar as early reports insisted that there was a human being hiding in the attic, and that heat imaging had been used to determine this.

In other developments, two men were arrested and charged with hindering prosecution; one, 18-year-old Jeremy Thomas had allegedly fled the scene with Leonard, while the other, 41-year-old Gabriel Thomas, had apparently had contact with Leonard after the shooting and then provided misleading information to investigators.

That Other Thing: The first witness in the Jerry Sandusky trial utterly humiliated Sandusky's attorney, Joe Amendola. Of course, Amendola's opening remarks, in which he tried to paint Sandusky as the victim, may have been more hopeless. Mike McQueary is on the stand now. There, you're up to date and I can stop talking about this one.

Forgot to Pay the Bill: The Big East is now suing TCU for $5 million. When I first saw the headline, my immediate reaction was "OH, PLEASE," because I assumed the Big East was just being silly. Then I read the story and discovered that it's because TCU is refusing to even pay the agreed-upon sum for leaving the conference, at which point I said, "Oh. Well, uh, okay."

And Another Lawsuit: This one's more concerning, as it's a suit against Connecticut women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma for sexual harassment. Former NYPD detective Kelley Hardwick, an NBA security official who's worked with the US WNT as well, was released from her WNT responsibilities after complaining about Auriemma trying to put the moves on her.

Finally, Someone at Clemson Denies Interest in the Big 12: Of course, it's just Dabo Swinney, which means it's completely meaningless.

Dabo Swinney: "We’re a 1000 % committed to the ACC. Going to the Big 12 is the worst thing we could do as a program. It makes zero sense"

— Travis Sawchik (@travis_sawchik) June 12, 2012

On the Road Again: Conference USA has pulled their basketball tournaments from Memphis, what with Memphis no longer being part of the happy Conference USA family. The 2013 event will be in Tulsa, which didn't do a great job of attending the tournament in 2010 despite a decent population base and two Division I basketball programs.

Diablerie: Senior guard Khalif Wyatt of Temple: busted in a prostitution sting in Atlantic City. ... Another torched recruitment letter, as BYU commit Brayden Kearsley declares war on Utah. ... and that's it. A horribly un-fun day.

Spring Championships: The CWS field is now finally set, and for the first time since 1970 a school from Ohio will be visiting Omaha. Kent State won a thriller last night over Oregon to advance, giving the College World Series not only two northern schools, but two cinderellas. Joining Kent State and the other five teams which had already punched their tickets (Florida, Florida State, Arizona, UCLA, and Stony Brook) are Arkansas, who broke a scoreless tie in the 10th inning then clung to the lead, and twice-defending champion South Carolina. The party kicks off on Friday.