101 wins?

[SWC75]

Were those victories given to the other teams? Somebody won those games.

 

[721Comstock]

Were those victories given to the other teams? Somebody won those games.

Nope.
Which is yet another reason that vacating wins is such a stupid “punishment”.

The games happened.
We won, they lost.
Those losses remain on our opponents records.

I like how Jay Bilas gets around it -
“Jim Boeheim has inflicted X number of losses on opposing teams”.

Where X is JB’s true number of total career wins.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

I disagree with the definition you are using for ineligible.

Forfeiting games is a huge penalty. It should be used when a team wins games playing against opponents on an uneven playing field. This includes those like playing with players given money to attend a school. Playing with players whose parents were given jobs in exchange for coming to the school. Allowing players to play in games where the school knew the players were taking performance enhancing drugs. Allowing players to enroll and play who cheated on their college boards, or used a bogus HS transcript to become eligible. Allowing athletes to compete in games while they are academically eligible.

In short, things that give schools a competitive advantage over other schools.

I do not consider players who tested positive for non-performance enhancing drugs (this has never affected NCAA eligibility) to be ineligible. The NCAA says those players were ineligible because SU had a drug policy to notify the guardians of players who failed the drug policy. SU sometimes did not do that. There was absolutely no competitive advantage gained here. The behavior the players engaged in was and remains common. There was no competitive advantage gained. Saying the players were ineligible and the games should be forfeited is not reasonable and is nonsensical.

This is a situation where the SUAD and coaches sometimes did not follow internal procedures. It has nothing to do with the NCAA. The NCAA should focus on enforcing their rules; not interfere with and severely penalize schools for not always following internally set rules that regard minor, almost irrelevant things athletes do everywhere with no penalty. I have no problem with the NCAA noting internal procedures were not followed. I have no problem with fining the coach, the AD; whoever was responsible. But you have to fit the punishment to the crime. You have to have some sense of consistency.

As i remember it, that was the biggest violation.
What else did the NCAA object to?

The NCAA complained that a couple of players got paid $50 to ref games or teach classes at a YMCA. I think the said the might have been an instance or two where the YMCA could not prove the player showed up and did what they were paid to do. Maybe that happened. Maybe not. Again, if players were paid for nothing, that is not good and the NCAA should write it up as a finding, and whoever is responsible for oversight on players working during the off-season hound be written up and probably fined. The NCAA apparently also objected to players getting $50 to drive to and from Oneida and to spend 90-120 minutes working. I don’t see that as a major violation. I am not sure there is any violation here. Taking out money for gas, how much did the players make per hour? $15-$20? We are talking about a couple of players making maybe a hundred or $150 dollars here. Again, I don’t see this as a competitive advantage and I am confident the NCAA would find similar or worse things happening at any other NCAA school. No one came to Syracuse to play basketball so they could make $50 dollars a couple of times an a YMCA driving 30 miles each way.

There might have been other things but the only other one I remember off the top of my head was the Fab Melo saga. As I remember it, they thought a tutor wrote a paper for him. This was strongly disputed and i don’t think the NCAA had proof. I don’t know what happened here. SU cooperated with the NCAA fully throughout the investigation and self reported found almost every violation. Not exactly a smoking gun here.

I think the biggest issue the NCAA had was with Dr Gross assembling a ’ dream team’ designed to find ways to deceive the NCAA and keep Fab eligible. That was really bad behavior that i think should have made Dr Gross ineligible to work at an NCAA institution for 5 years. Had he been successful and had Fab played the spring semester when he wa ineligible, yes, i have no issues having those games be ruled forfeits. I am not sure but I think SU did let Fab play a couple games after the fall semester ended, and Fab failed his courses so spectacularly that he immediately became ineligible. Those games should be considered forfeits. SU did play those games with an ineligible player and did gain an unfair competitive advantage.

That is how i see things...

The answer is to start your own athletic association with its own rules. Then these things won’t happen.

 

[007]

Were those victories given to the other teams? Somebody won those games.

And...why aren't the losses during the same period vacated?

 

[SWC75]

Nope.
Which is yet another reason that vacating wins is such a stupid “punishment”.

The games happened.
We won, they lost.
Those losses remain on our opponents records.

I like how Jay Bilas gets around it -
“Jim Boeheim has inflicted X number of losses on opposing teams”.

Where X is JB’s true number of total career wins.

Then the games were not really 'forfeited'. JB was just denied credit for the wins.

 

[hoopsupstate]

I think the vacated wins were due to a certain player getting paid when it was supposed to be an unpaid internship. That’s why the football team had to vacate wins too. I don’t think it was the drug testing that cost JB his wins. The funny thing is the players never would have taken an unpaid internship or whatever it was If it was going to be unpaid.

 

[CardiacCuse]

The answer is to start your own athletic association with its own rules. Then these things won’t happen.

if there 300million teams and they could all choose which association to join amongst many options...you would be making a good point.

 

[JRHEETER]

Not trying to start a war here but to say we didn’t have a competitive advantage because cause the kids took non performance enhancing drugs and we knew about it and didn’t sit them is...foolish.

We took the competitive advantage by not sitting kids when they violated our own policies and turned our heads to it. Of course they were starters and valuable players that got this treatment and so yes, we did gain a competitive advantage from this.

Now, did we deserve the punishment that we received and JB losing his 101 wins? No I don’t think so, the NCAA is far less harsh on other schools that did far worse than what we did.

 

[sutomcat]

Not trying to start a war here but to say we didn’t have a competitive advantage because cause the kids took non performance enhancing drugs and we knew about it and didn’t sit them is...foolish.

We took the competitive advantage by not sitting kids when they violated our own policies and turned our heads to it. Of course they were starters and valuable players that got this treatment and so yes, we did gain a competitive advantage from this.

Now, did we deserve the punishment that we received and JB losing his 101 wins? No I don’t think so, the NCAA is far less harsh on other schools that did far worse than what we did.

You are entitled to your opinion but based on this post, I question if you understand what competitive advantage means here.

I know of no study ever conducted that concluded smoking pot gives athletes a competitive advantage. I believe most college students and most college athletes who play basketball smoke pot. That our coaching staff and athletic department created a policy that made no sense and that they decided not to enforce did not give Syracuse a competitive advantage. It just needlessly exposed the basketball program to possible issues in the event of an NCAA investigation.

I don’t know how anyone with a functioning brain can think that violating this idiotic policy gave the basketball program a competitve advantage. The players didn’t cheat. This didn’t make them better. The policy was an ill conceived one from day one. I assume that is on JB and his staff. Even worse was the failure of the SUAD to do due diligence oversight on the basketball program. This was a minor administrative screwup that should result in penalties but IMHO, it should NEVER under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES lead to the forfeiture of a basketball game. I don’t have the numbers but I think the drug policy thing was directly responsible for something like 95-98 of the 101 games forfeited.

The NCAA has had 2 historically moronic sets of penalties that led to forfeiting tons of games for things that did not give teams competitive advantages in games.

One was when the NCAA decided to strip Joe Paterno of many of his wins because he turned a blind eye to one of his direct reports raping children in his locker for years.

The other was the decision to strip JB of 101 wins because some kids smoked pot and the staff sometimes didn’t call their moms.

I am no Penn State fan but again, you have to make the punishment fit the crime. It is great that the NCAA apparently felt P e d o p h I l I ais really bad but they shouldn’t have taken away a lot of Paterno’s wins for this either. Forfeiting games is a severe penalty that should be reserved for when teams received major competitive advantages breaking NCAA rules that resulting in a dramatically uneven playing field for athletic contests.

The same applies to the bizarre NCAA decision to take JB’s wins away. Fine him, suspend him, limit his ability to recruit. Whatever. When a team fails to follow a minor procedural process to the letter, part of the responsibility is on the staff, but part also falls on the athletic director, the NCAA enforcement officer on staff and whoever else is involved in internal auditing. The basketball program has already shown it needs to be watched closely. The fact that this didn’t happen is unacceptable and one of the reasons I feel Dr Gross ended up being a truly horrendous athletic director.

Anyway, JoePa eventually got his wins back, because the NCAA clearly overstepped their bounds and what they did could not be justified.

The same will eventually happen with JB and his wins. They will be given back because the punishment the NCAA chose clearly does not fit the crime. When the NCAA finally collapses, cases like these will be a big reason why.

 

[MSOrange]

This article recapping an interview JB did with Gottlieb might be helpful to the discussion.

Jim Boeheim talks vacated wins on Doug Gottlieb Radio Show

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim addressed the program's 101 vacated wins during an appearance on the Doug Gottlieb Show on CBS Sports Radio.

www.syracuse.com

Boeheim said that the 101 vacated games stem from the NCAA's findings regarding impermissible work done by members of the academic support staff and director of basketball operation Stan Kissel, as well as money a player received for giving a speech at the Oneida YMCA. Boeheim said the money was paid back but the player had not been re-instated.

"Most of them were about tutoring," Boeheim said. "Most but not all. One was a speech for $300 where the money was re-paid but not re-instated. That one was 45 games. ... The (drug policy) has nothing to do with any of the games."

Syracuse did not vacate any victories because the basketball program didn't follow the school's policy regarding failed drug tests, a third finding by the NCAA.

 

[HOFCeluck]

I think Syracuse fans would be best served making peace with fact that those wins are not coming back.

 

[sutomcat]

This article recapping an interview JB did with Gottlieb might be helpful to the discussion.

Jim Boeheim talks vacated wins on Doug Gottlieb Radio Show

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim addressed the program's 101 vacated wins during an appearance on the Doug Gottlieb Show on CBS Sports Radio.

www.syracuse.com

Boeheim said that the 101 vacated games stem from the NCAA's findings regarding impermissible work done by members of the academic support staff and director of basketball operation Stan Kissel, as well as money a player received for giving a speech at the Oneida YMCA. Boeheim said the money was paid back but the player had not been re-instated.

"Most of them were about tutoring," Boeheim said. "Most but not all. One was a speech for $300 where the money was re-paid but not re-instated. That one was 45 games. ... The (drug policy) has nothing to do with any of the games."

Syracuse did not vacate any victories because the basketball program didn't follow the school's policy regarding failed drug tests, a third finding by the NCAA.

That info is news to me. Somehow missed that article. Thank you.
I am glad that the NCAA did not take wins away for the drug policy violations. That is great.

I disagree with taking 45 wins away for a $300 payment for a speech, that was later repaid. That is ridiculous. Players routinely get minor benefits that tun out to be NCAA violations and are allowed to pay the money back and retain eligibility. No one came to Syracuse because they would one day have a chance to drive to Oneida to give a speech at a WMCA to earn $300.

Yes, it shouldn’t have happened and yes, the money should be repaid. Maybe the YMCA director or the NCA compliance officer, and maybe some of the basketball staff screwed up here and should be penaltized.

But it didn’t give SU a competitive advantage over other teams. Forfeiting every game that player played for the rest of their career is insanely excessive.

I don’t know enough about the details of the alleged violations regarding tutoring to comment much on this.

I do know the NCAA took 0 victories away from UNC where they openly admitted most of the team committed academic fraud every season for two decades. I strongly suspect whatever Syracuse did wasn’t nearly as egregious as what UNC did, did not go on for 20 years and did not affect almost every player on the team.

I know of no other school that has had 56 victories taken away because of tutoring issues. Pretty sure this, like the YMCA speech thing, is completely unprecedented and that no school since Syracuse has ever had similar penalties imposed under similar circumstances.

 

[CousCuse]

If the NCAA is going to be absolved of allowing teams to funnell sneaker money to recruits, which their evidence showed on the spread sheets( Syracuse not one of the programs), then they can damn well give back the 101 for such a vindictive and competitively strategic sanction regime.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

That info is news to me. Somehow missed that article. Thank you.
I am glad that the NCAA did not take wins away for the drug policy violations. That is great.

I disagree with taking 45 wins away for a $300 payment for a speech, that was later repaid. That is ridiculous. Players routinely get minor benefits that tun out to be NCAA violations and are allowed to pay the money back and retain eligibility. No one came to Syracuse because they would one day have a chance to drive to Oneida to give a speech at a WMCA to earn $300.

Yes, it shouldn’t have happened and yes, the money should be repaid. Maybe the YMCA director or the NCA compliance officer, and maybe some of the basketball staff screwed up here and should be penaltized.

But it didn’t give SU a competitive advantage over other teams. Forfeiting every game that player played for the rest of their career is insanely excessive.

I don’t know enough about the details of the alleged violations regarding tutoring to comment much on this.

I do know the NCAA took 0 victories away from UNC where they openly admitted most of the team committed academic fraud every season for two decades. I strongly suspect whatever Syracuse did wasn’t nearly as egregious as what UNC did, did not go on for 20 years and did not affect almost every player on the team.

I know of no other school that has had 56 victories taken away because of tutoring issues. Pretty sure this, like the YMCA speech thing, is completely unprecedented and that no school since Syracuse has ever had similar penalties imposed under similar circumstances.

We lost a LAX Championship because a coach's wife co-signed papers for a used car loan .

The player didn't get any money. The player didn't get an interest free loan. The player didn't get a free car.

Just a signature.

Even if the player sat out the Championship game, we still win by 9 goals.

 

[Dodger44]

If Boheim sticks around and gets to 1,000 wins again. He will be the only coach (that I'm aware of) that can say he won 1,000 ball games twice. Will be a NCAA trivia question years from now.

And I agree they should never have taken the wins away. Why did the teams that lost to SU (from these 101 games) get stuck with a loss on their record but SU gets no credit for playing the game. If the NCAA wants to take away 101 games, they should have removed the losses of those teams SU beat during those 101 games.