the corrupt ncaa has painted itself into a corner, a no-win scenario for them. if they come down hard on unc a massive lawsuit will follow with subpoenas and discovery and cross-examination exposing their favoritism and back room agendas. if they go easy on unc, after many years and millions of dollars of investigation, it still looks like an agenda to hurt unc recruiting by prolonged threats and insinuation. my guess is they will choose the latter despite the embarrassment and criticism. the last thing they want is a legal investigation shedding light on their own dark rat holes.
IDK, I actually think the NCAA jumped in to this in full belief that something was very wrong with us and due to the publicity felt they had to act. In a very similar fashion as they did with Penn St and Paterno, that they had an obligation to find stop and correct a wrong doing. But just as happened in the Penn St case, after they committed to finding what they assumed they would find, they found out in stead it was not what they thought it was. But by then they were already committed to the narrative, just as they were with Penn St, and I think panic set in, "oh crap, we have to find something they did wrong to justify the punishment we need to give UNC so the media will not crucify us.
This forced the NCAA in to putting on a tough minded front, maybe we can get UNC to cave due to the media pressure, accept what we throw at them and get the whole thing over and maybe UNC will not fight it. The longer this draws out the more effect it has on their recruiting so they were sure UNC would cave and the NCAA could get this all done and over with. Problem is UNC didn't cave, they lawyered up, they swung back and it leaves the NCAA in the awkward position of finding nothing but smoke when they fully expected to find a 5 alarm fire? Not exactly the stuff you want to walk in to a court of law with and especially considering that Penn St killed them in court, not good for the NCAA, not good at all. Tried some dirty tricks to see if they could blow them past UNC and catch them not looking, that didn't work, so now what, go to court? Now with Crowder publically stating there was not fire, backing away from her past inuendos, NCAA is skewered and in a no win situation. Media is going to torch them, programs are not going to like the heavy handed treatment because it well could be their program next on the hit list. This could threaten the entire NCAA institution, not just its current staff of fumblers and bumblers.
The NCAA would be well served if they hit UNC with the couple small issues that are deserved of their attention in womans bball and track and then jump on the UNC band wagon and sharing exactly why they did not and could not punish us more.
