unc Athletics Scandal - Amended NOA has been released

[Tom B.]

Don't ask Jay Bilas this question unless you have a few hours to kill. His opinion on the NCAA's allowance, and institutions' use, of issuing in-season, self-sanction post-season bans is verbose. Here's a hint in case you've just returned from outer space: he doesn't much care for the NCAA rules governing this.

Sorry for the digression, but while we've been focusing on UNC and its banners, Louisville could be at even greater risk of losing a banner. It seems pretty well-established that the Louisville players who received the, um....benefits...included several members of Louisville's 2013 national championship team (including, IIRC, Russ Smith and Montrezl Harrell). Given that the hookers and cash were directly supplied by an assistant coach, and went only to basketball players and recruits, that seems like about as clear-cut a case of "impermissible benefits" you're going to find. And if the players who got those benefits are declared ineligible retroactively, then any game in which they played is subject to being vacated. That includes the 2013 national championship.

[martydoesntfoul]

Of course we know this!

There are smoking gun emails where Crowder has said she put a few more regular students in a class and feels comfortable to put in a few more athletes because they don't want to raise "red flags".

The UNC administrators knew EXACTLY what they were doing. They created these classes for athletes to remain eligible and added regular students as insulation. The NCAA refusing to call UNC out on this is a <bleeping> joke.

This is ultimately what matters: UNC accepted non-athlete students into the fake classes because they knew this was the way to exploit a gigantic NCAA loophole. It was clumsy, it was pathetic, it was immoral... and it worked to perfection. Plus, it provides a perfect blueprint for everyone else.

The whole episode makes me want to vomit. It points to a society of powerful institutions that lack integrity and which can lawyer up to avoid responsibility. The NCAA is equally culpable here... and a lot of my joy is gone.

[madscavenger]

...........Given that the hookers and cash were directly supplied by an assistant coach, and went only to basketball players and recruits............

How do you know this?

[MChambers]

How do you know this?

Because the Louisville scam wasn't perpetrated by UNC folks who would have been devious enough to include a few non-athletes?

[madscavenger]

Because the Louisville scam wasn't perpetrated by UNC folks who would have been devious enough to include a few non-athletes?

Are you insinuating that UNC folks would have provided hookers for non-athletes?

[NSDukeFan]

Are you insinuating that UNC folks would have provided hookers for non-athletes?

If it helped them to get away with cheating they would do most anything, wouldn't they?

[BD80]

Are you insinuating that UNC folks would have provided hookers for non-athletes?

Why bother? In my opinion, all unc students can, um, love themselves.

[Tom B.]

How do you know this?

Just going on what's been reported. So far, to the best of my knowledge, the only people implicated have been basketball players and recruits. As I recall, all of the shenanigans (at least, all of the ones we know about so far) took place in the basketball players' dorm, right?

[English]

Just going on what's been reported. So far, to the best of my knowledge, the only people implicated have been basketball players and recruits. As I recall, all of the shenanigans (at least, all of the ones we know about so far) took place in the basketball players' dorm, right?

By all indication of the NCAA's history, if Louisville hires a team of exceptional lawyers who can ultimately argue that, at one of the parties, a random buddy of one of the players (non-athlete) was provided "gratification," this can all be dismissed as an institutional failure but not an athletic failure. Nothing to see here, NCAA.

Of course, I jest. It was actually an admisitrator in the Athletic Dept., rather than an assistant coach, but that's basically a distinction without a difference--the NCAA will insert itself. This type of case is what they live for.

[smvalkyries]

All joking aside it's ridiculous to compare Louisville's minor infraction with paid providers (ignoring the fact that the providers were the children of the providers and perhaps minors themselves I didn't read closely enough to remember) with Carolina's two decade long continuing erosion of the school's academic standards . To me the deprivation of and/or the elimination of the benefit for education greatly exceeds even a series of paid recruiting sexual benefits. I think unpaid sexual benefits are "provided" to recruits quite frequently and can't see that much of a difference from steering a recruit in the direction or actually paying for it. It is still "just" a recruiting violation more like USC providing Reggie Bush a house or Auburn? providing a church to cam's father. These are despicable but are still just recruiting violations and don't go to the core of a university's existence like the Carolina case.
USC got hammered by the NCAA for its recruiting violations, we expect Louisville to be severely punished for theirs but Auburn skates scot free and it looks like the UNC woman's team will absorb the brunt of the UNC punishment. What does this diverse treatment say about the NCAA? About the importance of education to the NCAA (and Carolina)? and the power of religion and football in the South? Time to dump the NCAA and get a rationale governing body for college sports.
As a tongue in cheek aside has anyone suggested that no show classes leading to a Carolina degree does not confer an impermissable benefit because Carolina has so degraded its certificate that the de facto the NCAA has ruled that it has no value? How else can the justify claiming that permitting 10 athletes to exceed the independent course limit can still graduate without having received impermissable benefits? I am not aware that any non-athletes were accored the privelge of graduating with 25 units of independent study?
Sorry Carolina, your greatest loss is the respect of your former rival. I for one have put you in a class with Maryland as wanting to be rivals but now lacking sufficient respect off the court to qualify. Carolina you have shamed the entire State of North Carolina and probably would fit in better in the SEC.

[moonpie23]

ok, so exactly how do you think they skated? something nefarious? or some legal tiptoeing?


HOW THE EFF DID THEY SKATE??



here's what i think....i think they (the NCAA) came to the realization that they were going to have to strip banners. If they strip banners for cheating, it definitely tarnishes the brand of the NCAA MENS BASKETBALL PLAYOFF (which is worth BILLIONS)

I don't think they used 8 months to figure out how to "lock up" HOW they were going to punish UNCheat....i think they spent 8 months figuring out how NOT to strip banners and somehow make it SEEM legit... giving the COI the entire 55 pages won't allow for much wiggle room....giving them this ANOA will allow them to fine them, strip some schollies, and MAYBE...MAYBE, some sort of post season ban....all while pretending to be enraged... IT's not that uncheat is too big to fail, it's the BRAND (ncaa champion) that's too big to fail.

Roger MILHOUS goodell (and vegas) will NEVER allow a championship to be rescinded....nor will Emmert...

watch them get out of taking 2013 away from L'vill...they'll figure out a way....

[redacted] the ncaa...

[hallcity]

Sorry for the digression, but while we've been focusing on UNC and its banners, Louisville could be at even greater risk of losing a banner. It seems pretty well-established that the Louisville players who received the, um...benefits...included several members of Louisville's 2013 national championship team (including, IIRC, Russ Smith and Montrezl Harrell). Given that the hookers and cash were directly supplied by an assistant coach, and went only to basketball players and recruits, that seems like about as clear-cut a case of "impermissible benefits" you're going to find. And if the players who got those benefits are declared ineligible retroactively, then any game in which they played is subject to being vacated. That includes the 2013 national championship.

Yes, but the "benefits" were received well after the 2013 title unless there's something I don't know. I don't see how you can take a title away for something that happened after the title was earned.

[cbarry]

Exactly! I was 100% confident all along that the NCAA was going to allow UNC to skate, and took a little heat for that opinion. As Moonpie23 said, BB is big business, and the NCAA did everything they could to avoid tarnishing that brand. A slap on the wrist (if they even get THAT) for UNC is a completely expected, though ridiculously unjust, outcome to this whole mess. The evidence is clearly there, but the NCAA found ways to only include select, less important allegations, while giving MBB and FB a pass. What a joke.

ok, so exactly how do you think they skated? something nefarious? or some legal tiptoeing?
HOW THE EFF DID THEY SKATE??

here's what i think...i think they (the NCAA) came to the realization that they were going to have to strip banners. If they strip banners for cheating, it definitely tarnishes the brand of the NCAA MENS BASKETBALL PLAYOFF (which is worth BILLIONS)

I don't think they used 8 months to figure out how to "lock up" HOW they were going to punish UNCheat...i think they spent 8 months figuring out how NOT to strip banners and somehow make it SEEM legit... giving the COI the entire 55 pages won't allow for much wiggle room...giving them this ANOA will allow them to fine them, strip some schollies, and MAYBE...MAYBE, some sort of post season ban...all while pretending to be enraged... IT's not that uncheat is too big to fail, it's the BRAND (ncaa champion) that's too big to fail.

Roger MILHOUS goodell (and vegas) will NEVER allow a championship to be rescinded...nor will Emmert...

watch them get out of taking 2013 away from L'vill...they'll figure out a way...

[redacted] the ncaa...

[lotusland]

Heels are going to skate with the NCAA. I hope a large UNCHEATERS banner is broadcast during every field goal or free throw in every game they play in for the next 20-yrs. They may say they don't care but I know UNC fans and they definitely care how they are perceived.

[plimnko]

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoot...sity-in-danger

[Faustus]

That's quite an article, coming from a sports site. I think it's showing that despite the cowardice of the NCAA in this (or just their obviously being paid off) the rest of the Civilized World is coming around to realizing what has taken place (and do we really believe anything has actually changed there? If the same people are still in control there, who have shown zero contrition thus far and have merely spent millions in hush money, spin, and covering up?).

Will never happen, but I wish other schools would simply refuse to play UNC in any sport for 5 years. That would deliver a form of justice even if the NCAA itself will not...

[duke4ever19]

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoot...sity-in-danger

Thanks for the link.

I have to think the academic penalties on the school are going to be rather severe. The NCAA can do whatever it wants, but the accreditation of the whole school is beyond their control, and will damage UNC's sports program in its own way.

[Edouble]

Why bother? In my opinion, all unc students can, um, love themselves.

Ademola Okulaja set the precedent for self lovin'.

[johnb]

It's sad to me that grown ups can possibly believe that Williams and the rest of the various coaching staffs weren't aware that their marginal students were consistently making A's in independent studies. Boggles the mind that anyone finds it plausible that the coaches weren't at least aware of the scam. And the more they protest (and the NCAA backs away), the more I find it sadly reprehensible.

Nevertheless, I don't think Carolina sports are too big to fail, nor do I think the alumni have so much clout that they're impenetrable. The breadth of the institutional and academic failures may be what allows them to skate through the NCAA investigation. At the same time, I can imagine the southern accrediting agency getting creative: professors have been pummeled for generations by the antics of sports programs, and I'd like to believe that they'll take this opportunity to mete out their own punishment.

[jdj4duke]

Nevertheless, I don't think Carolina sports are too big to fail,... At the same time, I can imagine the southern accrediting agency getting creative: professors have been pummeled for generations by the antics of sports programs, and I'd like to believe that they'll take this opportunity to mete out their own punishment.

I hope that you are right, but as my mother-in-law used to say, "People in hell want ice water."