The off-the-field college sports news is crazier than usual this week, and that’s saying something.

Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice, fired after making Bobby Knight look like Mr. Rogers. Allegations of grade-fixing, payoffs and drugs at the Auburn football program. The Pac-12 head of basketball officials resigning after offering money or a paid vacation (in jest, according to the league commissioner) to any ref to call a technical foul on a specific coach.

What could be next?

How about NCAA commissioner Mark Emmert defiantly sparring with reporters at a pre-Final Four press conference?

It hasn’t been just a bad week for college sports and the NCAA. It’s been a downward trend for ­years.

Recently, there’s the botched Miami investigation, there’s the Penn State lawsuit over whether the NCAA overstepped its authority in the breadth of its sanctions in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

There are questions about Emmert’s integrity and leadership based on his handling of scandals on his watches as chancellor at UConn and LSU. His response has been that he’s proud of his record at every stop and that he’s a reformer, and that comes with criticism.

This most recent run of problems emanating from all corners of the country signals a lack of effectiveness by the NCAA in policing its member institutions. Its rules and ideals are too often ignored to come to any other conclusion.

Perhaps it’s an impossible undertaking. But it’s becoming increasingly obvious the NCAA lacks an effective investigative and enforcement arm.

The University of Hawaii is affected by this inefficiency. It’s been 16 months since the NCAA opened a football point-shaving investigation of UH due to an anonymous complaint stemming from a 2011 game at UNLV.

A school official told the Star-Advertiser last September that UH was in recent contact with the NCAA regarding the issue, and it was open.

But athletic director Ben Jay said Thursday he has had no contact with the NCAA regarding the investigation since he started at UH in January of this year.

"The NCAA investigator has not been in communication, they have not gotten back to us. We still feel it’s an open file, but we’ve had no word," Jay said.

Jay added he’s "not surprised" that the NCAA has been silent, and in his history of dealing with it at Ohio State, "no news is usually good news."

If UH is in the clear, it’s simple common sense — not to mention courtesy — that the NCAA officially close the investigation and inform the school. But the governing body of big-time college sports can’t even handle something as simple as that.

And as we saw from Thursday’s exchange with the media, Emmert has bigger problems to deal with. Whether he realizes it or not.

"I’m still here," he told a reporter who had suggested he be fired. "I know you’re disappointed, but here I am."

At this rate, it might not be for long — for Emmert and the NCAA.