Sullivan | U of L's banner year at risk?
UPDATE: The NCAA's notice of allegations, released Thursday morning, alleges Louisville committed four major violations. Read more here.
The University of Louisville has accepted responsibility and shifted blame. It has self-imposed sanctions that have hurt innocent players while conspicuously avoiding penalties that might taint the past.
No victories have been vacated. No banners have been taken down.
No telling if that might change.
While U of L demonstrated accountability and contrition in forfeiting its shot at postseason play last February, its reluctance to roll back the punishment clock sent the implicit message that the 2013 NCAA men’s basketball championship was to be preserved if at all possible.
Even if it was won with the help of ineligible players.
As the Katina Powell scandal moves from investigation to adjudication with the delivery of the NCAA’s notice of allegations, it will be interesting to see how well U of L can insulate its title team in a system of justice where the rules say one thing that the NCAA's committee on infractions sometimes contradicts.
“There are a lot of different variables,” NCAA spokeswoman Emily James cautioned Tuesday. “It’s hard to speculate. ... It’s good to let the process play out.”
It would be better, though, if the NCAA's process were more transparent and more consistent.
Assuming Powell’s escort services qualify as an “extra benefit,” – that is, one not expressly authorized by the NCAA and not made available to other students on a basis unrelated to athletic ability – any player or incoming recruit who took part in her sex parties could be retroactively ruled ineligible based on NCAA Bylaw 16.01.1.
“A student-athlete shall not receive any extra benefit,” it reads. “Receipt by a student-athlete of an award, benefit or expense allowance not authorized by NCAA legislation renders the student-athlete ineligible for athletics competition in the sport which the improper award, benefit or expense was received.”
MORE U OF L COVERAGE
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- NCAA's U of L allegations expected this week
- U of L basketball investigation: A timeline
- Once U of L gets notice of allegations, what's next?
- Hicks still adjusting to new home
- Determined to move on, U of L turns to new core
To Dennis Thomas, former chair of the NCAA’s Division I infractions committee, the participation of even one ineligible player in a single game is grounds for an entire team record to be vacated. Case in point: Derrick Rose and Memphis, 2007-08.
Yet history also shows that of the 11 Division I men’s teams that have been forced to vacate Final Four appearances, none cut down the nets.
Coincidence or conspiracy? You make the call.
“The NCAA will not tolerate chicanery but also will not take away the reason why most schools cheat: to win titles that will be cherished forever,” Chris Dufresne wrote last year in the Los Angeles Times. “The reason is obvious: the NCAA, running more scared than ever, doesn't want to get sued.”
Dufresne was reacting to the NCAA’s decision to strip Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim of 108 victories for a pattern of violations dating to 2001, a penalty that curiously left the Orange's 2002-03 championship season untouched.
For those inclined to believe the NCAA practices selective enforcement and tends to avert its eyes from championship teams, here was cause for deeper cynicism.
For those fearful of an asterisk being attached to U of L’s 2013 team, here was cause for hope. Though vacating victories in games already won is often a futile gesture, more often an accounting nightmare than a deterrent, it can carry a lasting stigma when applied to a championship season.
According to SportsDelve.com, NCAA Division I championships have been vacated in no fewer than seven sports – in cross country, golf, lacrosse, outdoor track, soccer, softball and volleyball – but the only time a revenue sport had a title team stripped was in 2004, after USC football star Reggie Bush was ruled ineligible.
Even then, it was not the NCAA making the call, but the Bowl Championship Series.
“We (weren’t) a regulatory body,” said Bill Hancock, the former executive director of the BCS and now executive director of the College Football Playoff. “When the NCAA declared (Bush) ineligible, our group met ... and it was a fairly brief discussion.”
The NCAA allows for more latitude. Though it has adopted a set of core penalties to address its most serious infractions and sentencing guidelines that allow for limited wiggle room in some areas, vacating victories is a decision generally left to the discretion of the infractions committee and the specific strategy of schools being investigated.
In the wake of the 2010 tattoo scandal its former coach Jim Tressel tried to conceal, Ohio State sought to minimize future sanctions with a coaching change and the vacating of 12 football victories. Unsatisfied, the infractions committee imposed a postseason ban for the following season.
Like Louisville, Syracuse acknowledged its past mistakes last year by self-imposing a postseason ban but stopped short of rewriting the record book. Like Syracuse, Louisville prefers its banner year unblemished.
Tim Sullivan can be reached at (502) 582-4650, tsullivan@courier-journal.com or @TimSullivan714 on Twitter.