There’s a story on ESPN today about the Baylor men’s and women’s basketball programs facing possible sanctions due to phone calls and text messages that are deemed “recruiting violations” by the NCAA. This brings two things to mind: One, given the fact that it’s getting pretty hard theses days to keep track of which past Finals Fours allegedly did and didn’t happen (two of my favorite teams ever, ’92 Michigan and ’96 UMass, have been “vacated” by the NCAA, along with several others), it comes as no surprise that there may be suspicious things going on with a 40-0 women’s team led by a 6’8″ two hundred pound basketball player unlike any women the world has ever seen.
And two, the timing of this story adds validity to the very popular theory that there is no such thing as a “clean” program. Every big time school does things that are illegal in the eyes of the NCAA. It’s a joke. The reason this is coming out now is probably because some reporter started investigating Baylor after they won a title with a suspiciously dominant player reminiscent of The Predator. I’m sure right at this very moment there are tons of Kentucky haters digging into their recruiting process, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to find out in the near future that John Calipari might have a third Final Four appearance (and a championship) taken away.
I have no idea what the solution is, but the NCAA’s attempt to maintain that their athletes are “students first” is failing miserably.
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About Mark Vandeusen