A handful of big-time college basketball programs face a tough decision in the aftermath of an extensive Yahoo! Sports report of possible NCAA violations detailed in a federal investigation.
Expense reports from former NBA agent Andy Miller and associate Christian Dawkins implicated programs such as Duke, North Carolina, Texas, Michigan State, USC and Alabama. Star players such as Alabama's Collin Sexton, Duke's Wendell Carter and Michigan State's Miles Bridges were mentioned in the report.
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With the NCAA men's basketball tournament two weeks away, those schools face a big question while the investigation continues. As the Yahoo! report says, "This could end up casting a pall over the NCAA tournament because of eligibility issue."
That's the short-term impact programs that roster current players listed in the report must deal with. Do you play them now — and perhaps pay for it later? Or do you play it safe, knowing more details could be emerge from the federal investigation? As former Seth Greenberg said on SportsCenter on Friday morning, the general reaction to all of this will be "neither shock nor surprise." Questions still persist, and in the immediate we're talking about the players involved.
Should Michigan State sit Bridges based on two items in an expense report totaling $470.05? Or does the FBI have a lot more where that came from? That's the question the NCAA and Michigan State must answer on a compressed time-frame and perhaps without enough information.
Bridges' mother, Cynthia, allegedly received $400 and his parents allegedly had a meal totaling $70.06, and it's unknown whether Miles had knowledge of the incident. This also is going to re-hash the same questions about whether athletes are properly compensated.
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Bridges is one of the best players in the country on the No. 2 team in the nation. The Spartans are a Final Four-caliber squad, and Bridges stayed in school for his sophomore season. Is less than $500 worth ruling one of the best players in the nation ineligible?
That's the impact college basketball fans care about now, and Michigan State isn't the only school with a dilemma. Would Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski stake his long-standing reputation for Carter? Alabama is 17-11 and on the NCAA tournament bubble. Is playing Sexton even worth it? That's not even delving into the programs whose former players were named in the expense report. That's why these programs could elect to play the players mentioned and see where the fallout lands, unless the NCAA rules all of them ineligible pending an investigation.
Keep in mind we're dealing with the NCAA here. Its president, Mark Emmert, responded with a statement saying, "These allegations, if true, point to systematic failures that must be fixed and fixed now if we want college sports in America. Simply put, people who engage in this kind of behavior have no place in college sports." Yet nobody is "neither shocked nor surprised."
The timing for the NCAA to put its foot down is bizarre given the wide-ranging scope of the federal investigation to get here. Dawkins was charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office with three counts of wire fraud and one count of money-laundering conspiracy. That spreadsheet isn't necessarily proof those transactions took place. More investigations are coming, and that's going to take a lot of time. That will get lost, however, given the names of the programs and players that have been named. That's what fans are looking for. Programs, players and who got caught.
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All of that points to a sweeping overhaul the sport needs, but that's not going to happen in the next two weeks.
So that leaves programs such as Duke, Michigan State and Alabama, among others, facing that decision now. The Big Ten tournament is next week. Conference tournaments are coming, and who wants to draw up a 68-team bracket right now? That's the pall Yahoo! Sports is talking about, and it's very real. What should they do?
Option A: Let the players play, let the FBI investigate and use the offseason – or perhaps next few offseason – to answer all those long-range questions about compensating athletes fairly and come up with solutions that will bring much-needed reform to the sport. If schools need to face punishment or vacate wins later, then so be it.
Option B: Declare the players ineligible, conduct a short-term investigation, especially with players like Bridges, who should have a huge impact on the tournament. Let the FBI complete its investigations and wait to see who's next. At least the product won't have to be vacated later. This report did drop three days after the NCAA denied Louisville's appeal and the Cardinals became the first men's basketball team in the expanded bracket era to vacate a national championship.
The problem? Play now and pay later? Pay now to play later?
Both options sound about the same, and neither one sounds good on this timetable. How soon are we talking about?
Selection Sunday is March 11.
