NCAA decision on Tennessee

[tornado]

as expected -- the NCAA is going to come down easy on Tennessee -- in fact they are giving Tennessee no serious penalties at all...

despite all the cheating and violations discovered, the Knoxville Sentinel is reporting that...

The football program gets off totally free - no penalties!

The basketball program also gets off easy, but the NCAA issues "show cause" penalties for the coaches - who have already been fired, so they're not working anyway .

"No further restrictions were placed on the program beyond what was self-imposed"

http://www.govolsxtra.com/news/2011/aug/23/sources-ut-escapes-further-ncaa-sanctions-bruce-pe/

this is an absolute windfall for Cuonzo Martin who took the job fully expecting serious sanctions such as a possible post-season ban, TV bans, or scholarship losses -- but he gets nothing.
Even his top recruit, point guard Wes Washpun, who everyone had feared wasn't going to qualify -- gets cleared by NCAA --

[TheGuy]

Hopefully they are saving their big guns for Miami. What happened at Tennessee seems miniscule compared to that.

Also on that note. I don't think Universities should be allowed to self-impose a punishment (or at least it shouldn't even effect what the NCAA does). I compare it to a little kid who gets in trouble and runs to hide in their room before any type of real punishment is incurred in hopes that their parents feel that is good enough even though it should be more severe.

[tornado]

there's a rumor the ruling on Miami will come soon and hammer them hard for one year then let off...

[bigdaddystuck]

I like that the coaches were/are being punished in this way. Another school is going to seriously think before hiring Pearl or his assistants for the next couple of years (3 for Pearl and 1 for the assistants).

I hope that Miami gets severely punished, but believe that what T said is more likely.

[ShockerHoops]

It's really great to see the NCAA go after the coaches and not the schools in this situation.

[tornado]

why not go after both -- seems they always do when it's a mid-major they penalize