Did anyone expect a different result?
When it comes to the NCAA and how it handles punishment for its member schools, it’s always a matter of deny, don’t cooperate and create your own penalty and hope that’s all it is. When you do as the NCAA wants, they throw the book at you and make you look dumb. So when the NCAA’s independent resolution panel didn’t hand down any serious punishments for Kansas’ men’s basketball program on Wednesday, was anyone really surprised? It didn’t matter if the Jayhawks would’ve been caught with their pants down, this was the endgame.
Kansas is one of the most beloved and hated teams in college basketball. So vacating past wins and time already served with suspensions and recruiting restrictions, self-imposed by KU, is enough? I’m not advocating for doling out punishments that are for wrongdoings that don’t exist. It’s just comical how the NCAA pretends to govern college sports, when in actuality, the top teams set their own rules. Those in Indianapolis consistently look the other way when those who make them the most money do wrong. Look at Michigan football, and now Kansas men’s basketball.
This all stems from the FBI’s 2017 investigation into college basketball, full of corruption and bribes from some of the biggest movers and shakers in the sport trying to land the best recruits in the country on their teams. Will Wade got fired from LSU and can’t coach for the first 10 games of his new team’s season at McNeese State, because he’s totally a guy that should be running a Division-I program right now. And now Self is done serving his punishment. Kansas was placed on a three-year probation and will vacate its trip to the Final Four in 2018 and other wins from that season because of Silvio de Sousa’s involvement, you know, the guy that threw a chair during a brawl against Kansas State at Allen Fieldhouse.
Not given out was a postseason ban, which was given to rival Missouri’s football, baseball and softball programs in 2019-20. Self and assistant coach Kurtis Townsend will face no further suspension. Kansas was originally accused of five Level-I violations, the most severe penalty from the NCAA. Instead, the school, Townsend and Self combined to rack up three Level-II violations and four Level-III violations.
It would all be a joke if it were even slightly funny — or not sadly predictable.
