NCAA pushes back...

I am totally confused by the lack of institutional control argument.. Why would Coach Self and KU sit Preston once they found questionable activity around his car and sit DeSousa after it came out about the payments to his guardian? It doesn't make sense but then again, since when has the NCAA recently made sense.

I love KU, and they should fight just like Carolina did when they were exposed.

BUT

I have no delusion that Self accepted all the help from Adidas that they would offer - but was totally unaware of any wrong doing. He played the game just like all the Nike schools did.

Were any of you blindsided and shocked to learn Adidas and Nike had been giving money to high schoolers? I wasn't, and am not the least bit shocked to know it's been going on for decades. Self absolutely knew, and accepted the help.

With Preston, I seriously doubt Self and others were unaware he was driving a brand new Dodge Charger around campus. It had to have been parked at the swank basketball condos. Self sat Preston when the kid wrecked it and the police got involved. Preston screwed up, and forced Bill's hand.

I say we fight like crazy so we're not the scapegoat for all of college basketball, and because NCAA has a bone to pick and wants us - and Adidas - to pay the price for all college hoops sins. But not because we're the only school in the country so ethical that we would never knowingly allow Adidas to pay our players. Or that our coach is the most naive in the country and didn't know exactly what was going on.

With the David Beaty lawsuit, this is not our finest hour. But good times will come.

Rock Chalk.

Let the defense begin:

www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaabk/zion-wil...uke-nike/ar-BB13SA5v

What I don't understand about the case against KU, is that unless Self is willing to "take one for the team" of all college coaches, how can the NCAA believe this won't end up exposing every other blue blood coach and program? At some point Self just hands over the file of "kids we lost to Duke, KY, UNC, AZ because Nike paid more".

Go ahead NCAA, give us sanctions. then give the same to the other coaches and schools, and see what's left.

My guess is Self is filthy rich, in the HOF, and isn't willing to live his life as the snitch and be shunned forever.

He'll let KU spend tons of dough on lawyers, and see where it ends up.

Good stuff AZ and I agree with both your posts.

KU is being scapegoated here, and I think they need to do everything they can to push back. UNC played the clock by waiting until a deadline would approach and then they'd "find" something new to prolong things. I think we can do that too. I also think we should start talk about taking them to court. Let's start subpoenaing NCAA financial records and the personal financial records of their leadership. Granted, I'm no lawyer and I don't know what can be done in that department, but let's put some heat on them, their books and the individuals that run the place.

The Zion thing is one of those "finally" moments for me. The Curtis Townsend wiretap is one of the cores to the NCAA's case, and it's weak as hell. The guy on the phone told Curtis that Zion's parents wanted money and employment and Curtis essentially said, "I'll see what I can do." That's nothing. If I called Self and told him that I was going to burn down AFH if he didn't give me an autograph and he said "I'll see what I can do" before hanging up on me, I wouldn't be waiting by the mailbox for an envelope. Essentially Curtis' statement is a non-statement. "Yeah sure, whatever" isn't the same as actually taking action.

But that forced the question that I've been asking for a year. If a condition of landing Zion was money and/or jobs for his parents, why wasn't anybody looking at his parents' bank or employment records to see if there were any changes before he made his decision? It only stands to reason that if improper benefits were the "price" to land him and Duke landed him wouldn't they have had to pay it?

And if it's this obvious that little old me can figure out, and if the Townsend incident is SUCH A BIG DEAL why did the NCAA stop investigating at the wiretap? They knew the player involved, they knew where he landed, and they knew EXACTLY what the conditions were to sign him. Did the NCAA even bother to look into Duke? Did they give Zion and his family the same kind of scrutiny that were put on Preston (who never played) or DeSousa? If not, why not?