Frank Howard Suspended

[cuse522]

Frequently Asked Questions about Drug Testing

NCAA rules state the penalties and leave it up to individual schools to determine if they want to administer drug testing.
It’s now 50% of the season for a street drug and 1 year for a PED.

The stated penalties are for failing an NCAA drug test. The next section down says:

"Each NCAA member school is responsible for determining whether to establish an institutional drug-testing program, at which time the school would be responsible for determining applicable penalties."

So assuming that Frank failed a school-administered drug test, two things would need to happen if Frank tested positive in order to get him back on the court:

1. Whatever the policy says they have to do - if it's the same policy as before, this could be parental notification or a counseling session. (Does anyone know if the school changed its policy after the scandal?)

2. They need to be confident he'll pass any NCAA-administered test after the first game he plays in.

Where it gets tricky is that if this is his second failed test and the school administers a third test, and he does not pass, they have to revoke his eligibility. So they may need him to go test himself and trust him to be honest with them before they test him again to clear him to play.

The other tricky part is that I highly doubt Frank just smoked weed once, and it happened to be like this week and still be in his system. For someone who rarely smokes to just decide to do it the week before the most important drug test of his life would be insanely stupid, and you have to assume these guys are reminded frequently that they have to test before the tourney.

If he smoked all the time, and never stopped, then it would be tough to even hope to get him to pass in time for next weekend.

What's most likely in my opinion is that they were told to stop smoking weed like two weeks ago, and Frank decided he could get it out of his system in less time and took a chance... So they are probably literally in a day-to-day/week-to-week situation to figure out when it's safe to test him again.

If it's true that they flew him back to 'Cuse, that means one of two things - either they have to do the counseling session there (this seems kind of unlikely, you have to imagine they'd fly the counselor to SLC if they thought Frank could play Saturday if we win), or they don't have much hope that he can pass a test this weekend.

So my guess is that if we make the Sweet 16 he's got a decent chance to play.

(I have no inside knowledge on this situation whatsoever, this is just me interpreting publicly available rules and information and using common sense/logic to try to put it all together.)

 

[cuse522]

Not for nothing but Buddy slidding into the starting 5 will get us those 9ppg back. And I have to think if Carey is off the bench he can get us some good production too if given the chance. I think we will be okay, and who knows maybe this will be the spark we need. All we don’t need is for Battle to be a one man band and try to do it all.

The loss of depth is pretty critical, especially since JB doesn't develop much depth over the course of the season. If Tyus gets into foul trouble or isn't 100% and can't stay on the floor for 35+ minutes (and who are we kidding, JB is going to want to play him the full 40), we're in a lot of trouble.

It also means we have to play a likely tough game with our guards logging a ton of minutes, then turn around a beat a 1-seed coming off a likely cake walk two days later with our guards again logging a ton of minutes.

 

[MikeDamone]

http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/f...pionship_Site_Coordinator_Manual_20180710.pdf

NCAA only tests at its sanctioned championship events.
The rules dictate when you can get tested.
Since Syracuse plays tomorrow they could get tested after the game tomorrow.
After each round they can get tested at the NCAA’s discretion.
The NCAA can’t drug test during the regular season.

NCAA will have our entire team lined up with cups in their hands after this news

 

[MikeDamone]

National Communists Against Athletes

 

[FreakTalksAboutSU]

Random thought but as someone who saw this team play UConn at MSG without Howard, methinks those who say this is a better team without him is smoking the same stuff he was

 

[Cuse1055]

Random thought but as someone who saw this team play UConn at MSG without Howard, methinks those who say this is a better team without him is smoking the same stuff he was

That was back in November. I think the team, especially Buddy, has improved since then.

 

[FreakTalksAboutSU]

That was back in November. I think the team, especially Buddy, has improved since then.

i still cant see how the team is better without its starting PG. TO say they can "survive" is one thing. But better is quite simply wrong.

 

[Footey04]

I think the team is much better than they were in November. And Frank Howard only really plays well when Tyus Battle isn't playing. I expect the Orange to explode tonight without Howard. He will be missed against Gonzaga but still think were a better team without him in my opinion, at least Battle can get to hole and pass out to buddy and Eli for open 3's. Go Orange!

 

[Cuse1055]

i still cant see how the team is better without its starting PG. TO say they can "survive" is one thing. But better is quite simply wrong.

Never said we were better, but I still think we make a run.

 

[pfister1]

Frequently Asked Questions about Drug Testing

NCAA rules state the penalties and leave it up to individual schools to determine if they want to administer drug testing.
It’s now 50% of the season for a street drug and 1 year for a PED.

That is only partially true, as it assumes Frank failed NCAA administered testing and not school administered testing. From your own resource:

What is the penalty for failing a school-administered drug test?

Each NCAA member school is responsible for determining whether to establish an institutional drug-testing program, at which time the school would be responsible for determining applicable penalties. If a testing program is established, though, the school is obligated to enforce the penalties. Failure to do so can lead to NCAA sanctions.


I would guess we don't know the what the current school policy is at this point, obviously we have some idea what it was back in the era when we failed to observe it leading in part to our sanctions.

 

[MikeSU02]

This thread is insane. Frank doesn’t have the best judgment, we already knew that. We cannot take another PR hit or even sniff breaking the rules again (JBx3 probations isn’t going to be a good thing) and now we can play free, it’s house money now.

Start Buddy. Let Jalen get a little bit of run to change the dynamic. Hopefully we get some lobs to OB and Buddy/Elijah hit some deep threes.

 

[pfister1]

If it's true that they flew him back to 'Cuse, that means one of two things - either they have to do the counseling session there (this seems kind of unlikely, you have to imagine they'd fly the counselor to SLC if they thought Frank could play Saturday if we win), or they don't have much hope that he can pass a test this weekend.

Also possible that they know he can't be clear for this weekend and SU doesn't want him around so there is no possibility of getting into a pissing contest (pun intended) with the NCAA about whether or not the NCAA can subject him to testing after the game(s) even though we ruled him out for the games.

The problem being that the NCAA testing probably carries two sets of consequences (i) one backward looking for the program for using a player who is using drugs (which we avoid by not using him) and (ii) one forward looking related to eligibility for the player for testing positive. By not having him present they can't require him to be tested thus eliminating the possibility of having a positive test result subject to the NCAA determined penalties.

 

[CorduroyG]

i still cant see how the team is better without its starting PG. TO say they can "survive" is one thing. But better is quite simply wrong.

i think our starting lineup is better. its gonna hurt depth, but i said in feb our best lineup is with frank on the bench. battle boeheim hughes brissett marek.

i didnt expect frank to play like he did last week. obviously our upside is higher with frank playing that well. but if we got bad frank in the tournament then this doesnt hurt us.

 

[Jake]

Also possible that they know he can't be clear for this weekend and SU doesn't want him around so there is no possibility of getting into a pissing contest (pun intended) with the NCAA about whether or not the NCAA can subject him to testing after the game(s) even though we ruled him out for the games.

The problem being that the NCAA testing probably carries two sets of consequences (i) one backward looking for the program for using a player who is using drugs (which we avoid by not using him) and (ii) one forward looking related to eligibility for the player for testing positive. By not having him present they can't require him to be tested thus eliminating the possibility of having a positive test result subject to the NCAA determined penalties.

It’s also very likely an AD policy regarding suspended players.

 

[Newhouser]

why the assumption it's pot? could be some kind of PED

Exactly.

 

[SaltLakeOrange]

If he’s still in SLC he won’t be at the arena. He’d be holed up in the team hotel. We won’t see him tonight. If the test was this week, there is no way he plays Saturday either...selfish!

 

[cuse10]

Could it have had something to do with injury recovery? Hoping it wasn't weed. I don't think he's that careless to do it this time of year. I believe it's a situation similar to Clemson where they flew Frank out hoping that the B sample was negative. He just got his legs back and was playing the best basketball he had in a long time.

 

[Trueblue25]

Just yesterday people were speculating he had a gun. This board’s insane.

 

[dan7800]

Just yesterday people were speculating he had a gun. This board’s insane.

Some nut on Twitter posted that

 

[Trueblue25]

Some nut on Twitter posted that

Some nuts on here continued it

 

[ROCuse]

Some nut on Twitter posted that

So did someone on this board...

 

[MaxwellCuse]

Very, very disappointing. On the bright side, JB is back in his comfort zone playing only 7 deep.

 

[Fat tire 13]

Could someone start a new thread once we know the exact facts?

 

[cuseguy]

My guess is that Frank was probably smoking regularly, SU was aware, and decided to test him before the tourney to protect the school from stiffer penalties after NCAA testing. Just a well-reasoned hunch.

 

[hungrychuck]

[QUOTE="cuse10, post: 2963518, member: 5920"]Could it have had something to do with injury recovery? Hoping it wasn't weed. I don't think he's that careless to do it this time of year. I believe it's a situation similar to Clemson where they flew Frank out hoping that the B sample was negative. He just got his legs back and was playing the best basketball he had in a long time.[/QUOTE]

This seems possible. I thought the wording of the DO story -- quoting the NCAA policy on PEDs -- was odd when I first read it. In retrospect, it sounds like a backdoor way of hinting that they have info it's PEDs, but don't want to put their necks on the line and state it overtly.