OT - USC B-Ball Sanctions Itself Over Mayo
http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/ncb/news/story?id=4792634
Vacated all wins season he played, no post-season play this year (not even Pac-10 tournament). All based on internal investigation.
NCAA hammer to come?
January 3rd, 2010 at 3:09 PM ^
Sounds like an attempt to avoid to self punish to avoid the NCAA hammer to me. I wonder to what extent the violations actually were. Also I wonder how much internal/NCAA investigation is being done into the football team with the Bush accusations and the McKnight car situation
January 3rd, 2010 at 3:13 PM ^
Translation: The NCAA banhammer was coming and coming pretty soon so they banhammered themselves in hope of dodging an even larger banhammer.
Kind of a biggish deal - USC looked like a very solid NIT team at worst and it's going to cost them either a Dance run or some extra NIT home games. HOWEVA I don't think the NCAA is going to call off the hounds. As far as the NCAA is concerned it's a program-wide issue, what with the single investigation and all, and the football team didn't get anything yet.
January 3rd, 2010 at 3:27 PM ^
I'm hopeful this will put an end to some of the conspiracy theorists saying that the NCAA doesn't want to bring down their cash cow.
January 3rd, 2010 at 4:36 PM ^
..and I'll "go you one further:"
USC is sacrificing the basketball team in an attempt to deflect the NCAA's attention from the football team.
January 3rd, 2010 at 3:27 PM ^
...because USC BBall isn't the cash cow of the school as Football is so obviously it's not a big deal to the money making aspect of the school. The evidence surrounding Bush is, imho, much more damaging and yet USC hasn't done a thing. I wonder if SC is rolling the dice hoping that the court case about to get rolling will turn out in Bush's favor.
January 3rd, 2010 at 3:34 PM ^
I think the big difference I see in the two situations is that this guy was tied to Mayo while he was still in high school and while teams were recruiting him. Bush had been in college a few years and I can see a very plausible scenario where nobody at SC knew about the benefits his family was allegedly reaping down in San Diego. On the flip-side, Mayo's connection to unsavory characters should have been obvious and is I'm sure why a number of teams backed off in his recruitment. People knew the guy was a ticking time-bomb a'la Lamar Odom.
Sad thing is that SC basketball was better the year before and the year after Mayo played there and looked to be on quite a roll this year without any of these one-and-done players.
January 3rd, 2010 at 3:29 PM ^
As an SC basketball fan, this is a tough break for the current team. They struggled early in the year (in part because of a tough schedule playing Texas, Nebraska, and Georgia Tech) but had turned it around once transfer PG Mike Gerrity became eligible. They had won 8 in a row, including wins over Tennessee and UNLV by double digits. It really looked like this team was going to make an improbable tourney run and compete for the Pac 10 title.
Always hate to see kids and coaches who had nothing to do with the violations take all of the punishment while Mayo makes millions in the NBA.
Also, rumor has it that Floyd resigned after he found out about internal discussions where the prospect of essentially blowing up the basketball program (death penalty type punishment with the prospect of disbanding the program) to save football was at least put on the table.
January 3rd, 2010 at 3:46 PM ^
Also, rumor has it that Floyd resigned after he found out about internal discussions where the prospect of essentially blowing up the basketball program (death penalty type punishment with the prospect of disbanding the program) to save football was at least put on the table.If this rumor had any truth (sounds unlikely) then I have to wonder just how dirty USC actually is. The NCAA, IMO, probably won't level further punishment on the basketball team, as all the principal actors in the scandal are gone, and anything extra specific to the bball team would be overkill. HOWEVA, given that the NCAA has labeled USC with the "lack of institutional control" tag, then maybe once the Bush trial gets some subpoena power on Bush, we'll find out just exactly what's going on with football too.
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:43 PM ^
This wasn't necessarily a plan (or even rumored to be a plan) just a hypothetical that (according to rumor) got thrown out there during athletic department discussions. The fact that it was even talked about (in a, "What would we be willing to do to keep football untouched," kind of way) supposedly pissed off Floyd and he left thinking he was going to get zero support if indeed the shit were to hit the fan. Don't forget that he was supposedly offered and turned down the Arizona job shortly before resigning at SC, so his quitting didn't really make much sense at the time.
As Big P pointed out above, basketball doesn't make money at SC and football is king. If it came down to a choice between the two it would be no choice at all. The fact that they even speculated about making that choice is supposedly why Floyd left.
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:59 PM ^
has any balls they better add on to this... remember michigan self imposed a bunch of sanctions to try and stop from the NCAA hammer from hitting to hard, but it did any ways....