Illinitalk

I ran across this article over the weekend on ESPN.com and found it to be quite interesting for a number of reasons.

It basically outlines the NCAA rules the Kansas men's basketball team violated while Roy Williams was coaching at the school. Other programs at KU violating NCAA rules are the women's basketball program and the football program, by the way (keep this in mind for later).

An internal review by Kansas found that Roy "approved payments to graduating players and other Jayhawk players who had exhausted their eligibility."

While it doesn't sound too serious, it would still give me cause for concern if I was in charge of enforcing the NCAA rules and arrived at the same conclusions as Kansas' stellar internal investigation. (The ESPN story says that the NCAA expects to have it's investigation completed by the fall. KU releases on violations here.)

Anyway, check out the university's self-imposed punishment:

"The university, which put its athletic department on probation for two years, said
the violations wouldn't carry any television or postseason sanctions, but would result in a
reduction of scholarships in the football and women's basketball programs."

I'm assuming they didn't leave anything off there and that punishment is supposed to be for the rules that Roy violated when he was coaching there as well. (Sarcasm alert) Wow! Punishment with teeth! That's what I like to see!

Two things I'd like to point out while we wait for the NCAA to finish its investigation:

1. The NCAA could send a strong signal to athletic departments across the country when they hand down their punishment by not paying too much attention to the lesson Kansas U is trying to teach itself.

I don't believe KU's violation is that huge. However, as Good Hope Orange points out: "If you consider these minor gifts to be okay once students have graduated, then why not promise any recruit that comes to KU a $100,000 (for example) once they have graduated? I know that isn’t what happened here but you can’t say the rule applies in one instance but isn’t a big deal in another. The rules are in place for a reason, regardless of the gift amount."

So hopefully any average moron will see it does require a stiffer penalty than what KU athletic department is getting from the university.

2. Talk about a hit and run. Roy screws up/semi-cheats and then leaves for UNC. Nice work, Roy.