Larry is an amazing basketball mind, but yeah he's one of those coaches who's pathological... just can't seem to help himself. Cut from the old NYC cloth.
Because SMU was a case with actual malfeasance in basketball and dishonesty to the investigators, unlike UNC.
He played for Dean but was a Frank McGuire recruit, part of the "underground railroad" that got us on probation because of Frank's shenanigans. Larry came from that dog-eat-dog NYC culture. Dean always liked Larry --- sorta like a black-sheep prodigal son --- but unfortunately Dean's integrity didn't rub off on him.
I'm sure. And it takes them longer to absolve than to hammer. What is maddening is that they will almost never announce a program has been cleared... they just end the investigation. In fact the only time the NCAA has ever categorically exonerated a program was the Cam Newton garbage at Auburn. There were two reasons for that: 1. The whole thing was nothing but a smear job by SEC rivals, and 2. Chizik started calling out the NCAA publicly for delaying.
It's funny, I always heard good things about Larry from my aunts and uncles who loved him from his playing days and of course they pulled for him with the Cougars. Of course by the time my own recollections began he was well into a coaching career. I always pulled for him because he was a Carolina guy, but over time his act wore thin. The "Suitcase Larry" moniker portended a mercenary quality that turned me off. He was more than willing to call on his UNC connections when it served his purposes but I never saw any giving back.
