Welcome to the absurd NCAA witch hunt
Both sides look ridiculous. Both the NCAA and the University of Memphis.
Reading what they’ve gone through over the past three years, ever since James Wiseman’s eligibility came into question, that’s the first thought.
Among the hundreds of pages of documents and correspondence provided to The Commercial Appeal through an open records request, including a heavily redacted notice of allegations from the NCAA’S Independent Accountability Resolution Process and a heavily redacted response from Memphis, there are some staggering numbers and names revealed.
There were 500,000 pages of documents provided by Memphis for this case, four different interviews conducted with Memphis basketball coach Penny Hardaway, and 29 witness interviews in total. This generated 1,640 pages of interview transcripts.
Former assistant coaches Mike Miller and Sam Mitchell, football coach Ryan Silverfield, Team Thad program director Norton Hurd, former athletics director Tom Bowen and even former Memphis basketball coach Tubby Smith were mentioned as being interviewed by the NCAA or the complex case unit of the Independent Accountability Resolution.
Yes, even the guy who got fired, in part, for not being able to reel in bigtime recruits like Wiseman got entangled in this.
All because of an NCAA amateurism policy that was long ago identified as a farce and no longer even exists now that basketball players like Wiseman can profit off their name, image and likeness. All because Memphis decided to play Wiseman in those three games to start the 2019-20 season, to fight an organization it knew long ago was corrupt enough to prevent a fair fight.
That’s the part you should find hard to stomach. It’s why I’ve struggled to have much empathy for university administrators throughout this process. Memphis literally asked for this. Many have pointed to the fact that the notice of allegations included reference to the basketball program’s previous NCAA cases, dating as far back as 1986, as proof of how absurd this whole thing seems. As if Hardaway had anything to do with Dana Kirk’s transgressions. And they’re right.
That history is also why Memphis should have known better than to act the way it did in November 2019.
By not doing what most everyone else does in these eligibility situations, by not begrudgingly accepting the NCAA’S punishment for Wiseman, it sent out an invitation to check under the hood of the entire athletics department, even though it knew it might not pass inspection.
By agreeing to participate in the IARP, it agreed to the possibility that in
vestigators might find more than just the $11,500 Hardaway gave Wiseman’s family in moving expenses when Wiseman moved from Nashville to Memphis in the summer of 2017 in order to play for Hardaway at East High School. Surprise: They apparently did.
What exactly all those allegations entail remains unclear because the university chose to redact many of the specifics related to most of the charges in its notice of allegations and its subsequent response. But if the allegations weren’t bad, does anybody really believe Memphis wouldn’t have provided more information?
We do know there are four Level I violations alleged.
They entail, broadly speaking, a lack of institutional control, head coach responsibility and failure to monitor, and failure to cooperate with the investigation.
They leave Memphis open, broadly speaking, to severe punishment if proven through the IARP.
Postseason bans, recruiting restrictions and a show-cause penalty or suspension for Hardaway are very much on the table depending on the details that have yet to emerge.
It could even have an effect on the university’s hopes of joining the Big 12 sooner rather than later. This was all possible the moment Wiseman took the court once the NCAA designated him “likely ineligible.”
Memphis, by the way, knew what it had done to itself long before Saturday morning. The amended notice of allegations arrived back on July 9, before Jalen Duren and Emoni Bates had committed to play for the Tigers, before their season nearly went off the rails, and before Hardaway turned the program around and got it back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2014.
Since last July, the university attempted twice to get the case thrown out completely because it alleged that an NCAA investigator was too involved in the witness interviews considering the process was designed to be independent of NCAA’S investigators. It’s a fair point to raise, and twice the independent chair of the IARP panel denied the university’s argument.
The complex case unit insists Miller’s university-issued computer was wiped clean of pertinent information and alleges this to be a nefarious act because there wasn’t an adequate investigation conducted into why Miller’s computer appeared to be tampered with.
Memphis responded that Miller’s computer simply couldn’t be rebooted and asked for it to be examined by an independent computer forensics team. When the CCU declined that proposition, Memphis nonetheless turned the computer over to investigators.
Evidently, someone from Geek Squad should have been included in this arbitration process.
Outgoing University of Memphis president M. David Rudd also sent a letter alleging military-style interrogation tactics during the interview process, particularly as it pertained to the college-aged athletes involved. Another fair point to raise.
The investigators responded by saying the recording of the interview revealed no such thing, and the amended notice of allegations ended up including a violation that accused Memphis of prepping some of its witnesses for their interviews ahead of time.
It’s fairly common in a court of law. It’s apparently against the spirit of NCAA bylaws, many of which are either being rewritten or no longer actually exist.
So on one side of this case sits a bunch of witch-hunting hypocrites who claim to be independent of the NCAA but sure act a lot like the NCAA.
On the other side sits a school that, in essence, requested these hypocrites come to town with their pitchforks.
It’s all ridiculous once you sit down and think about it.
You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto