Before Jerry Tarkanian built a college basketball powerhouse in Las Vegas, he was the coach at Long Beach State in the early 1970s and had two tormentors: John Wooden and his dynastic U.C.L.A. teams, and the N.C.A.A.

What irked Tarkanian for years, though, was the way the N.C.A.A. pursued him doggedly at every stop in his career yet seemed to have little interest in digging into all the favors a notorious booster did for U.C.L.A. players in the ’60s and ’70s.

“The N.C.A.A. is so mad at U.C.L.A.,” Tarkanian would quip, “they’re going to put Cal State Northridge on probation.”

The wheels of college basketball justice seem to turn no differently these days.

The latest example will be unfolding over the next couple weeks in a federal courtroom in Lower Manhattan, where two low-level operators, a would-be agent, Christian Dawkins, and a shoe company consultant, Merl Code Jr., will stand trial for bribery. Jury selection began Monday.