Major NCAA voilations at Memphis under Calipari!!!

Well, here is what will happen:

All those who don’t like Calipari will ignore the fact he isn’t named and use this to justify their position that Cal is the dirtiest, slimiest cheater in NCAA world history.

Most UK fans will repeatedly point out that Calipari’s name isn’t mentioned which makes this somewhat analogous to the Marcus Camby situation and doesn’t prove anything about Calipari cheating at which point the non-UK fans will simply declare that the UK fans are being willfully blind/naive/whatever while once again overlooking the fact that Calipari’s name hasn’t been mentioned.

As for me, this doesn’t look good but at this point that’s all it is – just “looks”. I’m sure more information about this will be forthcoming, particularly after the June 6 hearing and I’ll reserve judgment until then.

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern?

Not saying Cal is or isn’t guilty here, but boy, it doesn’t look good.

I imagine most of these will be discussed in more detail at the hearing and the relevant details will becoming public eventually, but until then:

1) The free travel expenses involve a person riding the team plane and staying at the team hotel on a couple of occasions without paying for them.

I don’t know how these things are typically done, but it seems to me like it’s an issue that should be handled by the athletic department or the DBO, not the head coach. My question is, did this person ride the team plane and stay at the team hotel on other occasions and did pay for them? If that’s the case then it’s possible that there was a mixup on reimbursement or something similar. It wouldn’t excuse the violation, but it would remove any nefarious intent.

2) I’ve read through the SAT portion three times and haven’t seen any phrase that indicates the NCAA is accusing Memphis of “knowing fraudulence or misconduct” as stated in the MCA article. The closest thing I can find is a request for investigative records of the SAT score by the Education Testing Service, a report about a handwriting evaluation by a forensic document examiner, and a reference to NCAA Bylaw 31.2.2.4 (quoted below for those not up on their NCAA Bylaws).

31.2.2.4 Institutional Penalty for Ineligible Participation. When an ineligible student-athlete participates
in an NCAA championship and the student-athlete or the institution knew or had reason to know of
the ineligibility, the NCAA Committee on Infractions may assess a financial penalty. (Revised: 4/26/01 effective
8/1/01)

ETS is responsible for administering and scoring the SAT and is not directly connected to Memphis or the NCAA. It seems to me that if somebody else took the SAT for the athlete, that’s a problem for ETS, not Memphis. However, the mention of investigative records and a handwriting examination could indicate that ETS thought there was something fishy and alerted Memphis to the fact. On the other hand, such things might well be a standard procedure for all standardized tests – that would not surprise me in the least.

It’s possible to read the bylaw and conclude the NCAA is implying that Memphis had reason to know of the SAT issue, but that isn’t how it’s phrased in the notification. Here is the relevant portion of the letter:

Also, please provide the following: … h. a statement indicating whether the provisions of Bylaws 31.2.2.3 and 31.2.2.4 apply to the institution as a result of (redacted) potential involvement in the violations outlined in this allegation.

The reference to the bylaw seems more along the lines of the NCAA asking “How much did you know and when did you know it?”

I assume Memphis will present their evidence and we’ll find out the answers to these questions in due time, but based on what we know now there is little reason to believe Calipari knew about any of this.