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Jay Bilas says the NCAA is so determined to punish North Carolina that it’s breaking its own rules to do so.
Bilas – a former Duke basketball player who now works with ESPN – said there’s never been a situation like the one at UNC, where university officials allegedly used fraudulent classes to keep players eligible. But Bilas thinks the NCAA has stepped out of line.
http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/article156649234.html#storylink=cpy
I dont understand why he has made it some crusade to stick up for UNC. It just doesnt make sense the way he goes to bat for them. And please spare me the “he works for ESPN and knows where his bread is buttered” angle. I think this goes above and beyond that.
I think Jay hates the NCAA. (This of course probably indicates some level of self-loathing since he covers NCAA basketball extensively for ESPN.)
He spoke out against the NCAA when they ruled on Penn State which required courage and was intellectually justified. Here he is just being lazy. It’s not about “rigor” – meaning the how difficult the classes were. Rather, it’s about classes that didn’t exist and were done outside the framework of what any certified institution of higher learning would consider acceptable.
Basically, it’s the difference between showing up to work every day and doing nothing then submitting a time card for those versus not going into the office at all, not having your computer on at all and submitting a time sheet saying you were working during that time.
It’s definitely nuanced and unc and its advocates (like Jay Bilas and Andrew Carter) – are definitely counting on the public mixing up an “easy class” vs a non-existent one. Bills silence on the morality of what UNC has done to gain advantage and what they haven’t done to themselves in terms of punishment tells us what we need to know about him and ethics. (If he has been critical of the Heels I have missed it.)
One Dukie nails Bilas well on PP:
Bias is beneath contempt. A patent shill and Mr. Know It All all rolled into one. I guess one day, UNC will give him an honorary degree so he can have that UNC diploma he has always dreamed of…..Good golly, I am ashamed that he went to my alma mater.
I wonder if he has apologized yet for accusing Frank Jackson on the air of faking an injury against UNC and then being glad the injury wasnt fake when it was revealed that Frank was bleeding. I bet not. People with no ethics or integrity are often the ones to most quickly accuse others of their ethical or moral failings.
I actually kinda like Bilas, but he is NOT a legal scholar folks. Yes, he has a point that is valid, but he is way too quick to allow UNC off the hook because academic irregularities (sounds so nice and simple when said that way) can’t be classified as “impermissible benefits”
First, that is total horsecrap! The players received “impermissible benefits”, regardless of what anyone says. Tell the NCAA to sack up and take another pass on that NOA.
Seriously, if all Louisville students received free sex (er, “physical irregularities”) at these parties, would it then be ok? Of course not! Also, if Pitino should have known, why shouldn’t at least one single UNC coach have known?
Sorry, but Jay Bilas seems way too quick to use to the letter of the law to give them a pass, rather than acknowledge the repeated cheating and use the letter of the law to identify where they violated the rules (regardless of the changing NOAs).
Come Jay, sack up and at least call it lack of institutional control.
I’m probably in the minority, and I’m no Bilas fan, but I tend to agree that the NCAA has already bungled this one. Because of the class action suit, they’re trying to show a heavy hand and involvement on the academic side. But UNC has been wise to point out the availability of these classes to non-athletes. They’ve done a masterful job reshaping the narrative. And it’s not clear that the NCAA is really addressing this properly, or won’t subject themselves to more litigation.
In my opinion, it doesn’t really matter if the classes were available to non-athletes. Their eligibility status isn’t in question. The question should’ve always been eligibility due to fraudulent classes, and a distinction should’ve been drawn by the NCAA between fraudulent (as in, not just any old independent study, but an independent study in violation of the school’s own independent study guidelines, which was graded by an unapproved faculty member or graduate student, and benefited an athlete by enhancing their GPA and making them eligible). That’s the key. You’d have to look at each case and determine how it impacted eligibility. Were grade changes involved? Having worked in academia briefly, I’ve seen all kinds of independent studies offered for a variety of reasons. What was going on at UNC isn’t the norm, but by itself, independent studies should be up to the school to regulate.
More importantly, this has really become the focal point and completely distracted from the plethora of other benefits being offered, some of which should’ve been investigated more fully. The research into this, even among the PP folks, hasn’t adequately focused on a number of other facets.
Of course the NCAA bungled it. They have sent an additional 2 NOA’s. They’re used to playing checkers, UNC is playing chess.
Institutions are supposed to report themselves, they are supposed to cooperate – in a sense – unc has used the rules against the NCAA rules against them by operating in bad faith. The NCAA is not set up to investigate violations of rules.
However, UNC has admitted academic fraud, they’ve admitted fake classes, theNCAA has the right to punish them based on the findings of the Wanstein report substantially.
The NCAA could have wrapped this up long ago and dropped the hammer on UNC. They haven’t because they don’t want to. They’ve let UNC extend this multiple times because they don’t really want to deal with it. It’s classic “kicking the can down the road” behavior.
I’ve long since accepted that nothing will happen to UNC beyond a wrist slap. It’s part of my drastically reduced interest in NCAA sports. By doing nothing to UNC (yet hammering little schools), the NCAA is slowly killing the goose that laid the golden egg. I don’t personally know any 35+ year old (prime giving and advertising targets) that are more interested in college sports than they were 10-15 years ago. Maybe that’s the natural cycle, but I tend to doubt it.
Having said that, Bilas has been an insufferable goon for a long time. This behavior hasn’t changed that, or my opinion of him, at all.
I met Bilas in CA at an LA Times party. What an arrogant prick, and that was 15 years ago. Had I met him in the early 80’s, his beak might resemble Bayless’s.
Bilas is an attorney.
That aside, this is classic depends on what the definition of ” is is”.
After lecturing the world on their special mission, noble goals and lofty expectations they are showing all the bluster of the “carolina way” was just bluster.
One big ol’ minstrel show since 1990.
McCallum
I actually kinda like Bilas, but he is NOT a legal scholar folks. Yes, he has a point that is valid, but he is way too quick to allow UNC off the hook because academic irregularities (sounds so nice and simple when said that way) can’t be classified as “impermissible benefits”
First, that is total horsecrap! The players received “impermissible benefits”, regardless of what anyone says. Tell the NCAA to sack up and take another pass on that NOA.
Seriously, if all Louisville students received free sex (er, “physical irregularities”) at these parties, would it then be ok? Of course not! Also, if Pitino should have known, why shouldn’t at least one single UNC coach have known?
Sorry, but Jay Bilas seems way too quick to use to the letter of the law to give them a pass, rather than acknowledge the repeated cheating and use the letter of the law to identify where they violated the rules (regardless of the changing NOAs).
Come Jay, sack up and at least call it lack of institutional control.
I will promise you that there are “females” and other illicit things used to entice recruits and to keep players. Louisville was only “one of many”. It’s been going on for years…Jeez, even “Friday Night Lights” touched on that at the high school level.
"Whomp 'em, Up, Side the Head"!
I met Bilas in CA at an LA Times party. What an arrogant prick, and that was 15 years ago. Had I met him in the early 80’s, his beak might resemble Bayless’s.
Moore and Van Allen were in the same building that we were in until a couple of years ago in Charlotte. Met a bunch of their attorneys, but never met or saw him…Would have loved to have “keyed” his car in the parking deck though…
"Whomp 'em, Up, Side the Head"!
After lecturing the world on their special mission, noble goals and lofty expectations they are showing all the bluster of the “carolina way” was just bluster.
They are playing MadLib games with semantics and doubling down on technicalities, perverting the letter of the law and ignoring the spirit, all in the name of winning. Meanwhile the NCAA has mounted a prosecution on par with OJ’s accusers.
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