Umbrage has broken out at the Final Four. Some among us media types have taken offense that one semifinal — North Carolina versus Syracuse — will match one ACC team that has just been penalized by the NCAA against another that soon could be. On cue, one Hall of Fame coach took offense at our being offended.
North Carolina’s Roy Williams: “We have talked about it so much; it’s been such a big story that I’m tired of it. We have, in my opinion, the greatest sporting event there is, the Final Four, going on. … All that other stuff that sometimes I call ‘junk’ has been talked about too much.”
Not to be outdone, the other Hall of Fame coach sought to paint himself as the offended party. Said Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim: “Losing the games (101 forfeited victories for using ineligible players) is the most irritating thing to me because there’s many situations and past cases where similar things happened and games were not taken away. We presented all that stuff. But, you know, nobody listened.”
Then this: “Things can happen in your program. You have to take responsibility for them.”
Then, beggaring belief, this: “I don’t think we gained any competitive advantage at any time in this whole case that we’ve been through for 10 years. I think it weighed on us for 10 years and affected recruiting for 10 years. That’s just part of the punishment. But when they say ‘cheating,’ that’s not true.”
Wait. What?
“Rules being broken is a lot different. Cheating to me is intentionally doing something, like you wanted to get this recruit, you arranged a job for him, or you went to see him when you shouldn’t. You called him when you shouldn’t to gain an edge in recruiting, to get a really good player. That’s cheating. I think if something happens that you’re not aware of (and) it doesn’t really affect the recruit, I don’t look at it the same way. It’s a violation.”
Even by Boeheim’s standards — he’s the champion whiner in a sport where every coach whines — this was astonishing. He served a nine-game suspensions this season for cheating/violations/whatever, but he sat on a dais in NRG Stadium on Thursday essentially saying, “What we did was more like ‘whatever.’”
Boeheim was followed by NCAA President Mark Emmert, who was asked if he agreed with that impressionistic interpretation of cheating. “I’ll let coach Boeheim define that how he wants,” Emmert said. “But the committee (on infractions) determined these are clear violations of the rules and that therefore it warranted some pretty significant sanctions.”
Syracuse was sanctioned for, among other things, academic fraud involving center Fab Melo. North Carolina is being investigated — and not just men’s basketball, as Williams is quick to note — for allegations of academic impropriety. Rashad McCants, a starter on the Tar Heels’ 2005 NCAA title team, told ESPN he stayed eligible via phony courses. We note that McCants last played at Carolina more than a decade ago. A rush to judgment this isn’t.
Asked about the Heels’ forever-pending case, Emmert said: “I’m not going to comment on the nature of the case itself. It’s been moving along very well. … They’re certainly getting to the end of the road on it.”
The reality of the here and now, however, is that two tarnished programs — one convicted, the other accused — will play Saturday, the winner to grace the NCAA championship game. Given that both Syracuse and Carolina are here, is the lesson of this Final Four that cheating/violating/whatever pays?
Emmert: “I understand why optically people have a lot of questions around all that. It makes perfect sense that they might.”
So what’s the point of sanctions if they don’t, you know, work? One year after removing itself from the 2015 Big Dance, Syracuse is among the last teams standing. Will next year’s Final Four match SMU against Louisville? (The former was banned from this tournament; the latter banned itself.) And will the NCAA infractions committee treat Carolina, which figures to win this championship, as a no-fly zone?
It isn’t as if the NCAA tournament hasn’t seen embarrassments before. North Carolina State was banned from the 1973 event for violations incurred in the recruiting of David Thompson. The Wolfpack won the 1974 title, Thompson being named MVP. In 2011, the championship trophy was handed to UConn’s Jim Calhoun, who was facing a three-game NCAA suspension the next season.
Still, as a combo platter, there hasn’t been a game like Carolina-Cuse. So now we ask: Can one seamy semifinal still yield One Shining Moment?
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