Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The NCAA report.

Here's a link to the .pdf of the NCAA's report. It's much longer than most of the reports I have read of this nature--about 60 pages. Ultimately, the NCAA seems to have split the difference. The NCAA stood firm on its 11th hour addition of the "failure to monitor" charge, concluding: "
Its monitoring of the former head coach and the men's basketball program proved both untimely in execution and inadequate to fulfill the requirements of heightened scrutiny.
Nevertheless, the NCAA added no additional penalties. Ultimately, the NCAA decided that hiring Sampson was such a gamble that IU was obligated to review by hand every single telephone record as it came in the door. Factors in IU's favor on this count were IU's nearly 50 years without a major violation, the significance of the self-imposed sanctions (including lost scholarships, significant recruiting restrictions on Crean, Dakich, Sampson, and one of the assistant coaches, the slot then filled by Dakich and now filled by one of Crean's assistants), and the way that IU dealt with Sampson and the remaining players.

So, that's that. IU kept its nose clean for 50 years beforehand, so doing so for the next three years (and hopefully for long after that) shouldn't be a problem. If anyone wants to argue that IU didn't pay a price, I would direct you to IU's results after mid-February of last year through this season, and to a comparison of last season's roster to this season's.

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