KU vs. the NCAA: a bloody war with no winners, but hopefully a broken system exposed
We are beyond Kansas basketball raising a metaphorical middle finger at the NCAA, and now fully into the fisticuffs. At the moment, there appears to be only two ways out.
On Thursday, KU announced that it “formally challenges each of the men’s basketball related allegations ... as neither NCAA legislation nor the facts support the enforcement staff’s allegations.”
The timing — near the end of the last day it could respond — suggests KU wanted to limit the punch in the immediate news cycle as its top-ranked program prepares for the season’s most important games.
The specifics of the response — detailed, direct, thorough — suggest KU will fight the NCAA with righteous energy, a steel cage match if it comes to it, with only one side’s lawyers escaping with pride (though both will have many billable hours to buy gallons of Johnny Blue).
You can read the entire response, but here’s the money quote:
“(T)here are several facts that are in dispute; there are assumptions made; and, perhaps most importantly, there are unprecedented and novel theories put forward that, if found to have merit by the Panel, would dramatically alter the collegiate sports landscape in ways not contemplated by the Membership.”
Again, only two endings seem possible at the moment.
KU could win a bloody war. The university has been consistent in saying the NCAA does not have the goods, that the case is based less on evidence and more on conjecture. The NCAA is a formidable opponent, but it is also an unsympathetic bureaucracy arguing rules that are widely seen as needing change.
So, that’s one possibility. Here’s another:
KU could be walking into an all-time institutional L. The NCAA’s adjudication is not based on innocent-until-proven-guilty, and if a reasonable person can look at the evidence that’s already public and conclude Bill Self and KU did not know the score, well, then that person might not actually be reasonable. Kansas’ counterattack, then, could end up looking like a child screaming that they did not steal cookies with the crumbs still on their lip.
So, that’s the other possibility. And the NCAA doesn’t often lose these cases.
The second scenario could include some of the heaviest punishments in recent NCAA history: a postseason ban, a show cause order for Self, diminished scholarships, even vacating wins, including the 2018 Final Four. Self’s reputation, on some level, will be determined by this case.
At least two pieces of common sense are in Kansas’ favor.
First, the NCAA does not have this case airtight, at least not based on what’s been made public. They have texts that show Self getting sloppy with communication, but no damning testimony or records that prove major violations.
The closest they come is the Adidas rep apologizing for not landing former top recruit Deandre Ayton, and a wiretap in which KU assistant Kurtis Townsend hears that Zion Williamson was asking for impermissible gifts and responding in part “we’re going to have to do it some way.”
That might be a smoking gun piece of evidence ... except that Williamson went to Duke.
Does anyone believe Williamson chose Duke for its business school?
The appearance that’s left is something like this: evidence of Self being friendly, working with, and talking with someone who broke NCAA rules to land players, but no actual evidence of players being landed.
Is KU really about to get slammed by the NCAA for breaking rules in order to not sign players?
Which brings us to the second piece of common sense.
Are Kansas and Adidas out here bidding against nobody? Are Nike schools landing players because they have better commercials?
Or — or! — are they all swimming in the same waters?
But-everyone-is-doing-it defenses are ineffective and a bad look, but this column is not about KU’s defense.
It’s about this entire saga being presented by the NCAA as some noble quest to protect amateurism, when it’s more like selfish, hypocritical and dishonest legislation designed to protect profits.
The rest of the world can see this for what it is: a model that was always built on greed and lies being further exposed as a sham, with palatial dorms and weight rooms built and coaches receiving multimillion contracts and shoe companies paying hundreds of millions as part of a multibillion dollar industry centered on talent that only a fool, or the NCAA’s rules, can believe shouldn’t be paid.
But, again. None of that is about KU’s defense.
In a court of law, KU would feel strong about its case. The NCAA is not a court of law, and Kansas may very well be in for some major punishments. If that’s the way this goes then the reputations of Self and KU will be widely blasted.
But a lot of us will be left wondering what’s accomplished by continuing to protect a system so obviously and long broken. KU and the NCAA are now fully engaged in war. Neither side will escape cleanly.
But no matter KU’s eventual punishment, the NCAA’s credibility crisis can be fairly illustrated by the laughable context of a program going to trial based largely on recruits it lost to presumably higher bidders.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 7:56 PM.