Earlier Tuesday morning, ESPN’s Jeff Goodman reported that the NCAA decided to ban Southern Methodist University’s men’s basketball team from all postseason play and their head coach, Larry Brown, for 30 percent of games (ends up totaling nine) this season.
Other stipulations of this ban include the loss of nine scholarships over the next three years, which significantly cripples SMU’s recruiting ability, reducing the team’s off-campus recruiting to just 20 days, banning unofficial visits from players next summer and placing the entire program on probation for the next three years.
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While the school can appeal these findings and sanctions, the odds are certainly stacked against them. According to Goodman’s article, former basketball administrator and ex-assistant coach Ulric Maligi helped junior guard Keith Frazier become eligible to play at SMU. Brown claims to have known nothing about this violation while it was taking place.
However, according to Goodman’s source, Brown failed to promptly report the violation and was not clear about the details of it when the NCAA interviewed him.
To be quite blunt, this ban affects SMU much more than a school with little postseason aspirations. The Mustangs project as a Preseason Top 25 team and have a legitimate claim to win the American Athletic Conference. It’s safe to say they had the potential to make a deep tournament run, especially with their blend of elite recruits and savvy veterans.
The two senior veterans, Markus Kennedy and Nic Moore, arguably the two best players on the team, will graduate without a proper swan song. Brown’s accountability, or lack thereof, is not only a major part of SMU’s unfortunate circumstances, but also the unfortunate circumstances that befell UCLA and Kansas before.
Brown, though respected in NCAA and NBA circles alike, needs to change his views and his attitude if he hopes to do anything more than continue to harm reputable programs and ruin the last seasons of four-year scholarship seniors.
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