Seeing that UL has self-imposed a postseason ban got me to wondering where the heck the UNC investigation is. I'm curious if anyone has any inkling on when the NCAA investigation is set to be complete. Are there any rumors on whether there will be sanctions imposed or simply a "you should have known better" statement issued?
As an aside - and offering up an opinion that is in no way especially insightful - it's amazing the NCAA is as slow and incompetent as they are. Something needs to be done to clean it up. Not only these types of investigations but the player investigations as well. As a KU fan, I couldn't believe the NCAA was looking into elementary school transcripts from Diallo from back in Africa, let alone letting the investigation drag into the season. UNC's investigation seems to have dragged on forever, wth?
The NCAA is caught in a bind with us, IMO they are trying to find a way out of the pickle they are in. No matter how many times this is discussed by the media and now I see a congressman feeling the need to discuss it, they have ALL misrepresented what occurred.
The pickle the NCAA is in is that they have already determined this was a academic issue and not a athletic issue, they have already stated very clearly for the public record this much and they have as well made it crystal clear that the NCAA does NOT have any authority what so ever over academics UNLESS the athlletes were steered to those classes by members of the athletic dept. The ONLY members of the athletic dept that may have in any way been associated with any of this may be womens basketball coaches and some olympic sports coaches. But few really care about that, they want the heads of our basketball and football programs. The fact that they can not hang either our basketball or football programs with this is one side of the pickle.
The other side of the pickle is what occurred with Penn St, a awful situation for sure but another situation that the NCAA acted more out of a desire to give the general public what they wanted, someone severely punished for a awful situation but the NCAA meeting out punishment in an area they actually had not authority to do so and that ended them up in court, a mistake they do not want to recommit.
So you have the general public out there near demanding severe punishment due to the medias total mis-reporting and spin but the NCAA realizing the issue for what it is and knowing it is actually not something they have authority over or ability to punish for. All the while the the NCAA sits back and wrings their hands not knowing what to do, realizing that if they do not hit UNC hard the general public will be in a uproar and knowing they do not have the authority to do much more than tough talk.
Yeah, they will hit us with the lack of institutional control, at most that means a hefty fine and probation but anything short of post season bans, games being stripped, scholarship reductions, and banners being pulled down is not going to be received well by the general public and the media will have yet another field day.
mean while no matter how in direct violation issues at SMU, Syracuse, or Louisville may have been of NCAA guidelines, no matter how punishable those offenses were because they actually did include direct and specific involvement of their basketball coaches the yellow dog media is demanding that UNC be harsher punished than any of those. The media does not care what actually happened and they care less for what the NCAA can do by its charter, they want to see a great program taken down hard because that sells for them, that keeps them worthy of followship. And I do think some of them are well meaning, but rather than do their own investigation they rely of prior reports by other media members, meaning they are lazy, deciding to take what someone else has said and adding their own version of spin to it, many times IMO fully believing they are right, that something far to wrong to not be harshly punished occurred and feeling a very strong punishment is deserved.
The notice of allegations has already been served to UNC by the NCAA, this whole thing may have been over and done with by now had it not been for UNC itself discovering a concern with soccer and self reporting that delaying the process once again. While the NCAA has not been in any way quick to get this over and done with in many cases UNC itself has delayed the issue by ordering its own multiple investigations and the NCAA electing rightfully to delay until those investigations were complete to see if they turned up any new information. Lost to the general public is the fact that UNC itself took steps well over and above what would have been taken at most schools. Most schools would have stone walled, not helped, most schools would have taken any measure possible to keep any skeletons secured in the closet but UNC opened the doors up totally, looking to hide nothing and in fact offering much more information that the NCAA could have ever expected any school to do. And every time UNC had opened things up the media has feasted on it by spinning any and everything is negative as imagination can allow and in some case exceeding even that.
So that is where we are left, with the NCAA trying to find some graceful way out of this knowing there is actually little they can punish for and knowing no matter what they do the media will crusify them. It is gonna be a interesting summer for sure but hopefully by the end of the summer this whole thing will be over and done with finally. Many folks will not be happy because their wet dreams of UNC getting the death penalty will not be satisfied but they should have paid more attention to the truth than the media spin. The media, they are the real villians here, they have lied and then doubled down on their lies and fed directly in to the prayers of many of our rivals fans greatest wish. Oh well, I sincerely hope they have to price to pay for that, doubt they do, they create the news they want to report now days, they have not actually reported the truth in years, doubt many of them even know how to at this point.
