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What: “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel”

Where: HBO, Tuesday, 10 p.m.

It’s NCAA tournament time, which means that it’s time for negative stories about college basketball. They’re easy to find, and HBO offers two on this edition of “Real Sports.”

One deals with last season’s scandal at St. Bonaventure, the other with last season’s turmoil at Missouri. Both are about the price these two distinguished universities paid for a win-at-all-costs philosophy. In each case, it started with the recruitment of an athlete who had no business attending a major university.

At St. Bonaventure, it was Jamil Terrell, who got into the school with a certificate from a community college welding class.

At Missouri, it was Ricky Clemons, who had attended seven high schools in five years without graduating. At Missouri last season, he was arrested a second time for assaulting a girlfriend and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. He was jailed after violating his probation by attending a party at the school president’s house.

This story, reported by James Brown, involves alleged payments to players and astonishing taped phone conversations between Clemons and the wives of two high-ranking school officials while Clemons was in jail. One is the wife of the school’s president, the other the wife of an associate athletic director.

Both stories are riveting, with revealing interviews from the principals involved. Gumbel does the interviews for the St. Bonaventure story.

The former athletic director at St. Bonaventure, Gothard Lane, talks to Gumbel about knowing that Terrell was ineligible but being overruled by the school’s president, Robert Wickenheiser. Terrell was recruited by Wickenheiser’s 27-year-old son, Court, an assistant coach.

Gumbel interviews Wickenheiser, who comes off looking bad. Worse yet, Ann Swan blames him for her husband’s suicide. Bill Swan, the board of trustees chairman who took a lot of heat for the scandal, hanged himself at his home last August.

-- Larry Stewart