The NCAA Needs To Reject Unjust Self-Imposed Penalties

Louisville’s self-imposed penalties stemming from alleged interaction with an escort service victimize the innocent.

In this case, senior graduate transfers Damion Lee and Trey Lewis, now unable to conclude their careers with an NCAA tournament experience.

The NCAA should make a bold statement by revoking Louisville’s self-imposed ban from this year’s NCAA tournament and inform school president James Ramsey, athletic director Tom Jurich and coach Rick Pitino that it will levy infractions on the Cardinals after its own thorough investigation is complete.

“We should be penalized, no question about it, but not this team,” Pitino said last week after Louisville announced its self-imposed NCAA tournament ban while the school and the NCAA continue their investigations.

“The NCAA didn’t make that decision. We made that decision. So we’ve got to stick with it.”

The “we” in that statement does not include the members of the basketball team. The players did not make the decision. The “we” includes the administrators involved, trying to save themselves from future penalties that can affect the bottom line. Louisville compliance officials did their work by discovering the alleged wrongdoing, some of which was severe enough for Jurich to go to Ramsey with the idea of imposing a tournament ban on this year’s team.

The NCAA has made a significant push in recent years to give athletes more of what they want and deserve with cost of attendance stipends, free substantial nourishment, allowing agent involvement with freshmen-to-be baseball players and giving basketball players more time to decide whether to turn pro.

All too often, athletes who have nothing to do with these allegations are left in the cold with these self-imposed and subsequent NCAA penalties. They are an afterthought in the decision-making process.

Jurich and Ramsey must have decided this was the correct decision to make because, according to an article in the International Journal of Sports Science, written by Jason Winfree and Jill McCluskey, research indicates NCAA penalties for those who self-sanctioned are decidedly less than institutions that did not self-sanction. They maintain there are financial incentives for schools to impose self-sanctions before the NCAA lowers the boom.  

Jurich and Ramsey are playing the percentages. Meanwhile, Damion Lee and Trey Lewis have nothing tangible to play for. The rug was swept from their feet a month before March Madness begins.

Instead of penalizing Lee, Lewis and innocent bystanders, the school could have imposed scholarship reductions because the alleged escort fiasco had the intent of improving Louisville’s recruiting efforts. Ramsey could have made the bold move of suspending and/or fining his athletic director and head coach signaling to the NCAA that Louisville acknowledges a lack of institutional control.

The fact that institutions can have different self-imposed penalties despite equally horrendous violations makes the whole process questionable.

Missouri self-imposed a postseason ban this season and vacated 23 wins from the 2013-14 season because of serious alleged infractions involving illegal benefits from donors (all of which happened during the tenure of previous coach Frank Heath). The school has also stripped itself of a scholarship this season and a second one no later than the 2017-18 season. The NCAA has yet to make its ruling.

Last May, Hawaii vacated 36 wins, reduced scholarships and placed itself on one year of probation (not including a postseason ban) for violations. The university also reduced practice time and paid a $10,000 fine as part of its self-imposed sanctions. Hawaii determined it was guilty of impermissible tryouts, improper benefits, dishonest conduct and the use of operations personnel as coaches under former coach Gib Arnold.

Seven months after these self-imposed infractions, the NCAA ruled that Hawaii will lose two scholarships during the next two seasons, and the Rainbow Warriors cannot play in postseason games during the 2016-2017 academic year. The NCAA approved the $10,000 fine that the university previously imposed on itself. Hawaii also must pay a penalty equaling 1 percent of the basketball program’s budget over the previous three years.

Hawaii did not impose on itself a postseason ban. The NCAA did not force that on the Rainbow Warriors until next season. Hawaii, in first place in the Big West, can play in this year’s NCAA tournament while Louisville, without a final ruling from the NCAA, must sit and watch.

When the NCAA penalizes Louisville, it may not enforce a postseason ban past this season because the Cardinals already did that to themselves. That’s great for the incoming recruits, freshmen who have not endured four-year careers such as Lee and Lewis. So much for seniors getting their due.

Their aspirations are sacrificed because Jurich and Ramsey wanted to take matters into their own hands and not wait for the NCAA ruling. If the NCAA is serious about placing the athletes above all else, it must address self-imposed penalties with the simple question: Are administrators and coaches looking out for their own interests more so than their current athletes?