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02/23 2011

DL529: Down The Jim Calhoun NCAA Violation Rabbit Hole (Wait, That Sounds Bad)

Posted by Dan Levy.

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We spend (almost) the entire show talking about the NCAA’s ruling to suspend Connecticut head men’s basketball coach for three Big East…next year…for his role in a series of major recruiting violations.

We also take a look at some of the national reporters and pundits. Read along with us, friends!

• Here’s the official ruling from the NCAA.

• Let’s start with Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports:

No postseason ban.

That’s honestly all that matters.

Sure, UConn coach and Hall of Famer Jim Calhoun, he of two national championships, took a whack from the NCAA when the organization finally rendered its decision Tuesday afternoon, after a nearly two-year investigation.

Maybe a light slap on the wrist is a more appropriate term.

• Here’s ESPN’s Pat Forde:

On Tuesday, the NCAA Committee on Infractions knocked a chunk out of the Cult of the Head Coach by suspending Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun for three Big East games next basketball season. As penalties go, it’s not a haymaker — especially when you consider what all transpired at UConn in its recruitment and enrollment of former player Nate Miles. (Yet another in a long line of players nowhere near worth the cheating schools did to get him.)

But the three-game penalty is far more than a slap on the wrist.

Putting Calhoun’s Hall of Fame behind on the couch for one-sixth of conference play is tangible proof that the age-old way of doing business in college sports — protect the head coach at all costs — is no longer acceptable.

• ESPN’s Dana O’Neil takes the legacy angle:

By singling him out for penalty, suspending Calhoun for the first three games of next year’s Big East season because of a recruiting violation, the Committee on Infractions has sent a clear and concise message to the coach: You are culpable in this.

On the surface it might not seem like much. Calhoun will only miss 1/6 of the 18-game marathon that is the Big East slate.

He has missed games before, more than three in fact with various health concerns. That was, if not of his choosing, at least of his own making.

But this is a benching, a benching of a man whose reputation means a great deal to him.

• Here’s a link to the other WWL talking heads via ESPN’s Experts panel.

• Here’s video from Seth Davis of SI.com talking about how the bigger penalties for UConn will come in a loss of scholarships and contact with recruits.

• Here’s Gary Parrish of CBS Sports:

“We think the penalty is appropriate,” Thomas said during Tuesday’s teleconference to announce the sanctions levied against the Connecticut basketball program.

Rest assured, the committee members are among the only folks who feel that way.

To the rest of us, it’s a joke but hardly unexpected.

Three games.

That’s it?

Calhoun ran a program featuring a coaching staff that made thousands of impermissible phone calls/text messages and used an agent/booster to secure the enrollment of a prospect. He got caught. And the penalty, basically, is that he’ll be forced to miss three games next season just like Kansas State guard Jacob Pullen was forced to miss three games this season … for accepting less than $300 in discounted clothing.

You see why this is crazy, don’t you?

Three games?

Calhoun has missed more than that in recent years for exhaustion.

• Yahoo broke the original story, so let’s finish with what their writers had to say.

First, Les Carpenter:

So while it was easy to assume Calhoun got off light when the NCAA didn’t put a postseason ban on his team, Tuesday, the punishment that did come was actually far worse for the reputation he fought bitterly to guard. By finding Calhoun failed to create an atmosphere of compliance, the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions was essentially saying he was no better than the crooks, cheaters and scoundrels against whom he has coached for nearly 40 years.

Forever now the Calhoun name will include a three-game conference suspension for recruiting violations.

And that he can never erase.

And then almost the exact opposite, from Jeff Eisenberg:

Even though the NCAA ruled in May that UConn committed eight major violations in the 2006 recruitment of forward Nate Miles, the penalty the Huskies received was little more than a slap on the wrist.

UConn wasn’t banned from the postseason, nor will the team be without head coach Jim Calhoun for long. Calhoun will only have to sit out three conference games next season and not make phone calls to recruits for a period of six months despite being cited for “failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance” within the program.

It’s pretty obvious to see that this suspension is somewhere between a slight slap on the wrist and, as we say on the show, SHAME! SHAME TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY FOREVER!!!!!

Probably closer to the former.

There are certainly other opinions out there and we wish we could put all of them here. If you have one you want to share, throw it in the comments.

Thanks for listening. We also spend the last five minutes breaking down last night’s Lights Leary – El Diablo fight. Short, but good stuff.

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Posted on February 23, 2011 at 10:46AM

 

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