Waiting for an apology from the NCAA..

Don't tell me that lately the NCAA has indeed nailed a couple of bigger programs like USC, UConn, and Tennessee/Bruce Pearl.....because none of that was actually because the NCAA ever wanted to enforce the rules or do what's fair...
Had NCAA had their way -- all those cheating programs would still be cheating and cruising along as always....
There's just NO WAY the NCAA can claim even the least bit of credit in any of those cases as the evidence of all those cheaters fell right into their laps and they were FORCED to begin investigations when bloggers and sports writers found the violations and covered them with their cameras and their own ink (I know - nobody uses real ink any more on the internet).

Nope - the only reason the NCAA even stepped into any of those bigger cases was because they were totaly embarrassed into doing so by articles written by sports reporters & bloggers detailing the massive freebies and cheating going on with Reggie Bush, and OJ Mayo, the Ohio State guys and even all the blatant cheating, recruiting violations, and improper phone calls by the likes of Jim Calhoun, Kelvin Sampson, and Bruce Pearl. Most all these violaitons were widely known and written about for YEARS before the NCAA was totally humiated and embarrassed into finally acting.

Once again -- after years of blatant cheating that we now see at Ohio State...back even before Maurice Clarett, and now it's even well known that the head coach and people in charge at Ohio State -- all the way up to the very top -- all knew about the cheating, they condoned it, and even took steps to hide the cheating and enable it...
(News now coming out that Ohio State's Jim Tressell was similarly cheating as far back as 1985!! - LINK)

Again -- the NCAA is only stepping in now that a completely independent writer blew the story wide open just by asking one the of the star football players what's up and the kid spilled the beans about how dozens of the stars on the football team were selling their jerseys and their autographs for thousands of dollars in money or freebies, including tattoos!
And once again -- NCAA comes out acting like they care about enforcing the rules, but in reality they are only going through some motions that they have to do because once again they've been embarrassed to find that everyone else in the NATION already knows about the cheating while they haven't even opened an investigation!

OK -- so now we have all the pundits and so-called experts writing that we should just let the kids have these kinds of freebies -- after all they're talented and why shouldn't they be able to cash in on their talent -- they deserve to get the freebies and money, right??

Even the likes of Bobby Knight, the Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney, and numerous national sports writers & self proclaimed experts have all called those NCAA rules "idiotic" and say we should just let the players have the money they get from being stars! They are defending -- even lauding the very cheating going on at Ohio State!

All those "experts" say there should be no crime in the kids profiting from their talents when going to college -- seriously!! Very few are writing that NCAA needs to come down hard on Ohio State and the other cheaters.....and most applaud when NCAA simply ignores or looks the opther way when this kind of cheating occurs...
Here's an example -- LINK

The argument goes something like this -- if we don't let the kids profit and peddle their talents to get some well deserved and needed cash -- then just maybe they'll skip college altogether or go to Europe and we will miss out on seeing their talents and the NCAA might lose some of their $$ Billions in revenue when people aren't tuning in to see the superstars that went to Europe.


SO -- where is all this leading and why does this issue have relevance to Bradley??

Well -- it's because twice in all of history -- the NCAA decided that Bradley needed to be spanked...
In the 80's when Bradley had a couple great seasons the NCAA dug until they found that some obscure, under-producing and disgruntled player claimed he got his phone calls covered and one of his family's trips to Peoria was paid for.
And again in 2005 when BU landed a player with considerable talent who'd soon go in the lottery -- a couple of Bradley players got a modest (not Terrelle Pryor-levels of booty) amount of pay INADVERTENTLY and completly outside of the context of cheating -- and in both cases the NCAA figured Bradley needed to be hammered with major violations and sanctions. Noooo..can't let any Bradley kids get even a phone call for free. This reminds me a bit about how, after Utah made it to the Final Four -- their head coach Rick Majerus got hammered for buying a hamburger for a player!! - LINK
Doesn't anyone else see the clear inequity here?? Hammer the lesser guys and enable the big boys...

Again -- all I ask is to recall how incredibly little and non-existent the penalties were for Indiana when they had hundreds of intentional and flagrant major violations, and same at UConn...and how USC basketball never even got an NCAA penalty at all and were essentially dropped form the whole NCAA actions...

So -- if the Bobby Knight, the national pundits, and everyone else -- including the NCAA say this kind of cheating should be allowed or that only minor, soft penalties are due -- then I demand all those arrogant talking heads issue a thorough and immediate apology to Dick Versace, to Jim Les, to Patrick O'Bryant & Will Franklin, and to all Bradley personnel and fans. I'm waiting --

Now -- Do I think any of those demands are even within the realm of possibility?? Nope -- because nobody at NCAA even cares about the little gyus like Bradley except to catch them in any way they can doing something they can hammer them for.
Such is the hypocrisy and bias of the NCAA. Hammer the little guy and let the BCS-boys skeet by. It's been that way since the $$thousands of dollars fell out of the Fed-Ex package headed FROM University of Kentucky TO recruit Chris Mills -- something that again the NCAA was completely prepared to fully ignore until the firestorm of media coverage embarrassed and forced them into at least checking it out. Even then - the NCAA did everthing they could to look the other way and ignore that violation -- then they found, after a brief investigation, that they didn't think a violation occurred.

I do not expect fairness from NCAA -- I expect continued bias and UNFAIRNESS...and this recent spate of a couple big programs getting caught has nothing to do with NCAA actually doing anything. It has to do with the big boys getting so over-confident and cocky about not getting caught that they are emboldened to cheat so flagrantly that the press is now catching them easily and writing about it.
Yahoo Sports and ESPN have done more the catch violators and enforce the NCAA code over the past decade than anyone at NCAA has. But even some of us lesser bloggers and even message board posters have spurred a few others in the mational media to shine a light on this unfairness from NCAA. But wake me up if or when this ever changes.