The most uneasy part of Kansas Jayhawks’ NCAA run — and what we should make of it
On Monday night, Kansas will play for a national championship here in New Orleans, a game the Jayhawks are favored to win, and if it just so happens to play out that way, be prepared for the NCAA Tournament’s most abnormal postgame moment.
NCAA president Mark Emmert would stand on a makeshift stage at the Superdome and hand the men’s basketball championship trophy to KU coach Bill Self, which would sort of be like bumping into your ex after an ugly breakup.
Except these two are tied together, whether they like it or not, the subjects of a story lurking in the background of the tournament’s title game.
In what seems like forever ago now, the NCAA in 2019 alleged Kansas had committed five Level I violations, and named Self and assistant Kurtis Townsend personally in accusing them of “intentionally and willfully engaging in NCAA violations.” Self and his lawyers have adamantly disputed the allegations, which revolve around payments made by Adidas representatives, KU’s apparel sponsor, to potential recruits. Self referred to the accusations as innuendo and three years later, after the involvement of an independent review process, we still await a resolution.
So the games go on.
A team playing for an NCAA championship is accused by the NCAA of breaking the rules.
It’s an odd sentence. What should we make of it?
That’s the question that initially prompted this column, and before I sat down to write, I thought I’d pose it to someone else — Jay Bilas, an ESPN basketball analyst who conveniently doubles as an attorney.
How should we view the concept that a team under the microscope of a three-year investigation is playing for the tournament title?
“Those two things are unrelated,” Bilas said.
To that end, the players on this KU team are not part of the allegations, nor has the independent review process announced Kansas guilty of the wrongdoing of which it’s accused. The background, in that sense, feels like where this belongs. Not the story of a Final Four. But not a forgotten detail, either.
There are some who can’t stop talking about KU’s alleged violations as the Jayhawks reach the sport’s brightest lights and then some who purposefully ignore it all, and wherever you land probably reveals your team allegiance.
Then there are others, me included, who believe it irresponsible to just completely ignore it this weekend but that there are worse things than allegations of essentially putting the money in the hands of the people who had most earned it — the players.
“The hard part about the NCAA enforcement process is the process itself implies guilt and negativity,” Bilas said. “When you actually get to the meat and bones of the matter, a lot of people would say, ‘Why is this even happening?’
“To me, this is just my view, the issues themselves don’t rise to the level of the hype around it and the discussion around it.”
People are talking about this, though, Emmert and Self included. Which makes it all the more relevant in New Orleans. They have both received questions here about the everlasting investigation, and there are more whispers than news conference questions.
Self acknowledged he thinks a resolution is coming sooner rather than later. Until then, KU marches on, vying for Self’s second title since arriving in Lawrence.
The NCAA leaders could not have envisioned this scenario three years ago, or at least not done so without a migraine. It’s messy, but they should know nothing is more to blame for this conundrum than their own archaic rules.
They love to call their athletes “student-athletes,” emphasis on “student,” a moniker they hope will help you ignore that the men’s NCAA Tournament generates nearly $1 billion per year off the backs of those student-athletes. Only last July did the NCAA permit them to benefit off their own name, image and likeness.
That’s why we’re here.
The old rules are gone.
The headaches of their past remain.
“There’s a thought that there needs to be a starting over of the entire process. In my view, if you start over, you drop all these cases,” said Bilas, who has long been vocal about his distaste for the NCAA and its members keeping the profits rather than the players. “...If the speed limit was 55 and it’s now 70, we’re going to punish them? Come on, man. Let’s get reasonable here. But there’s not a lot of reasonableness in the process.”
As Emmert passes the trophy Monday, no one should feel sorry he stands in this predicament. It’s the fans left shrugging their shoulders, wondering how to react. A suggestion? Enjoy the ride.
Because we don’t yet know what tomorrow brings. It remains unclear how this will shake out — suspensions, vacated wins, postseason bans or none of the above.
In the meantime, though, when it’s all said and done, KU could be the team left standing Monday night.
This story was originally published April 4, 2022 at 5:00 AM.