NCAA bans SMU basketball from postseason, suspends Larry Brown

[canderson]

Pretty big deal, SMU is a Top 25 team coming into this season. But with Larry Brown this is not shocking in the least.
 

 
This marks the third time a Brown-coached program has been sanctioned by the NCAA, with the others happening at Kansas and UCLA.
 
Part of the investigation at SMU stemmed from whether former basketball administrator and ex-assistant coach Ulric Maligi helped Keith Frazier to become eligible to play at SMU, a source told ESPN.

 
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/13769364/ncaa-bans-smu-mustangs-2016-postseason-suspends-larry-brown-10-percent-team-games 

 

[RedOctober3829]

This comes at no surprise to me.  Larry Brown has done this before and will do it again if given the chance.  

 

[The Napkin]

Part of the investigation at SMU stemmed from whether former basketball administrator and ex-assistant coach Ulric Maligi helped Keith Frazier to become eligible to play at SMU, a source told ESPN.

couldn't they have just signed him up for African American Studies?

 

[Cellar-Door]

And the NCAA wheel of arbitrary enforcement spins on.

 

[fairlee76]

couldn't they have just signed him up for African American Studies?

No shit.  NCAA enforcement continues to be a joke.  Create and operate a fake department at a blue blood program?  Eh, we'll look into it.  Help a kid pass a course (or whatever they did for Frazier) at a relative backwater?  Hammer gets dropped.  What a joke.

 

[Vinho Tinto]

And the NCAA wheel of arbitrary enforcement spins on.

 
I don't know what you are talking about. They are clearly going to throw the same level of punishment at UNC athletics for their academic fraud. It's coming any year now.

 

[Average Reds]

So SMU bends the rule to keep a single player eligible and is promptly banned from the postseason.  After a lengthy investigation, UNC is exposed as running a shadow academic department for the purpose of keeping athletes eligible over two decades and ... nothing.
 
I know the NCAA is between a rock and a hard place here, since consistency demands that they simply shut down UNC athletics.  (And we all know that's not going to happen.)  But there is no greater hypocrisy than to watch them continue to pounce on these smaller infractions with draconian punishments while fumbling around wondering what they are going to do with UNC.
 
Never change, NCAA.

 

[mauf]

This sounds like the kind of thing that would have flown under the radar if Larry Brown weren't already under the microscope because of his past transgressions. You play with fire when you hire a coach with that kind of checkered past -- which is why Gene Stallings saw his career ended over a one-off transgression, and Steve Fisher will never coach a big-time program again despite being one of the nation's best collegiate coaches.
 
The reason UNC has evaded NCAA sanctions is because there was technically no preferential treatment for athletics -- or at least, preferential treatment wasn't proven. Any student could have signed up for those piss-easy AAS classes. Yes, it's a scandal that the AAS department at a major university was apparently a joke, but that's more of an accreditation issue than an NCAA issue, and the lack of action against UNC is therefore more of an indictment against the toothless accreditation process than an indictment of college athletics.

 

[fairlee76]

This sounds like the kind of thing that would have flown under the radar if Larry Brown weren't already under the microscope because of his past transgressions.
 
The reason UNC has evaded NCAA sanctions is because there was technically no preferential treatment for athletics -- or at least, preferential treatment wasn't proven. Any student could have signed up for those piss-easy AAS classes. Yes, it's a scandal that the AAS department at a major university was apparently a joke, but that's more of an accreditation issue than an NCAA issue, and the lack of action against UNC is therefore more of an indictment against the toothless accreditation process than against the NCAA's rules.

I'm willing to bet that had that AAS program been operating at UNLV during Tarkanian's time there, the NCAA would have found a way to hammer UNLV's basketball program.  The point you make about the lack of preferential treatment makes logical sense, but I don't see a lot of logic in how the NCAA doles out punishment.  In an industry reliant on 18-22 year old kids, the "adult" enforcement folks at the NCAA stand out as being particularly emotional and vindictive.

 

[Average Reds]

This sounds like the kind of thing that would have flown under the radar if Larry Brown weren't already under the microscope because of his past transgressions.
 
The reason UNC has evaded NCAA sanctions is because there was technically no preferential treatment for athletics -- or at least, preferential treatment wasn't proven. Any student could have signed up for those piss-easy AAS classes. Yes, it's a scandal that the AAS department at a major university was apparently a joke, but that's more of an accreditation issue than an NCAA issue, and the lack of action against UNC is therefore more of an indictment against the toothless accreditation process than against the NCAA's rules.

 
So your argument is that if you want to commit academic fraud to keep your athletes eligible, make sure you launder the program and include some non-athletes as well ...
 
Whether the department was created for this purpose or simply evolved to fit the need, AAS came to be used as the clearinghouse for keeping athletes eligible.  And while this is absolutely an accreditation issue, it's hard to see how the NCAA wouldn't have jurisdiction considering that there is no denying that literally thousands of athletes over an 18 year period were kept eligible through systemic academic fraud.

 

[biollante]

College Athletics is about money. These "academic" enforcements are just attempts to make College Athletics seem to be about an education.

 

[DukeSox]

This sounds like the kind of thing that would have flown under the radar if Larry Brown weren't already under the microscope because of his past transgressions. You play with fire when you hire a coach with that kind of checkered past -- which is why Gene Stallings saw his career ended over a one-off transgression, and Steve Fisher will never coach a big-time program again despite being one of the nation's best collegiate coaches.
 
The reason UNC has evaded NCAA sanctions is because there was technically no preferential treatment for athletics -- or at least, preferential treatment wasn't proven. Any student could have signed up for those piss-easy AAS classes. Yes, it's a scandal that the AAS department at a major university was apparently a joke, but that's more of an accreditation issue than an NCAA issue, and the lack of action against UNC is therefore more of an indictment against the toothless accreditation process than an indictment of college athletics.

 
Ah, you've fallen for UNC's framing I see.