Violations at Duke??

[AZ BU Fan]

Kid could have won a scratch off lottery.... Yeah, the ticket he bought from, um, Morgan Fairchild, in, um, Durham....







Yeah, that's the ticket......

[tornado]

"someone" told me that back in summer of 2005, when the NCAA descended upon BU, the rule that was their FULL operational plan was....
"where there's smoke there's fire". The "smoke" was an apparent anonymous tip or two NCAA had received of impermissible actions at BU from someone whose name was never made public but whose identity is fairly well known.
....and NCAA was bound and determined to dig until they found something to nail BU for...and they succeeded. The NCAA people who were on BU's campus made it abundantly clear this was their plan - dig until they found some source for the "smoke".

All I ask for is fairness........now here in this Duke case there's PLENTY of smoke....and lots of people are seeing the same smoke and saying that it's way too fishy to buy that it's all innocent...
College kids just don't have $30K pocket change, college kids just don't get $70K cash advances on their name only, and college kids at DUKE especially sign an agreement NOT TO DO this kind of stuff and that they MUST discuss anything at like this in advance before they do it with the staff!

All of which causes me to believe that there's 1000 times more smoke here than there ever was at BU - and yet the smoke they saw at BU prompted an immediate, aggressive, and persistent search until they found something (whether it was what they had actually set out looking for or not) to call a violation and penalize BU as they had set out to do.

Again -- all I ask is fairness - do the same at Duke as you did at BU, SEMO, and Cal Tech!



BTW - one last thing - the argument that he wasn't a star and wasn't likely to get to the NBA has been pushed as some kind of defense that surely then nobody would give the guy tens of thousands of dollars of "benefits"...
I say wait a minute....then why do so many kids some how get "benefactors" to pay the $30,000 to $50,000 per year for them to go to horribly expensive prep schools, when they CLEARLY DO NOT have NBA-caliber talent (kids like DJ Richardson, Bobo Drummond, AJ Riley, Matej Buovac, Alex Olah, James Siakam, Aziz N'Diaye, Tijan Jobe, Beas Hamga, Lucca Staiger, etc...)
Obviously someone with gobs of extra $$ (and every school has big time rich boosters) is fully willing to spend it on kids who have little if any chance of getting to the NBA - but who might still make a pretty good living overseas.....and just maybe there's a reward built into such "payments" as "investments"....

[AZ BU Fan]

If you can't win a ring, got to have the bling!

Carry on T, fight the good fight!

Someone has to call out the money grubbing hypocrites at the NCAA...



Has 'Mr Sanctimonious' opened up his prune face on this issue yet?

[tornado]

everyone - especially at Duke is clamming up and so if nobody talks then NCAA will probably just let Duke slide and not even bother investigating...

"Rafaello & Co. (the jeweler) declined to speak with the NCAA, citing their ongoing litigation against Thomas.
Thomas is long gone, and he has absolutely zero incentive to speak with enforcement staff.
Bylaw Blog's John Infante told Keeley "if everybody keeps their mouth shut and everybody refuses to talk to the NCAA,
and by everybody I mean Thomas and the jeweler and whoever might have provided him this $30,000 ...
..then the NCAA will have no information, and thus no grounds on which to punish Duke...Duke has little incentive to talk, either.

...Duke staffers told ESPN...the program had no knowledge of Thomas's jewelry purchase.
That doesn't really matter; an extra benefit is an extra benefit (to the tune of six figures, no less),
and the NCAA could punish Duke even if it proved no one at the school could have known

..the eventual release of court documents could include some information pertinent to the NCAA's investigation..."

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/63796/lance-thomas-case-a-challenge-for-ncaa

[Dub]

I don't know anything, but it seems that there may be confusion about how the NCAA governing body conducts its investigation and settles on a verdict, versus how the American court system does theirs.

For instance, does the NCAA "court" have to follow the same principals of reasonable doubt, burden of proof, scrutiny of evidence, a jury trial, etc?
I assume not, and that opens the door for criticism on the issues of inconsistency and favoritism, based on $.

[Bravesfan]

I've said this many times before, and I'll say it again. How dumb can a player be to flash their money around like this?! I don't care whether he got cash under the table or not. If Duke pays it's players to play for them (what a shock!), at least be smart enough to hide the money!

[tornado]

Wow - that was fast...........

just as soon as this story 2 1/2 year old story from DECEMBER of 2009 was splashed across the front pages - because the jewelry store was tired of being ignored, wanted their $$, and went public with this...

..suddenly someone pays up the entire debt and now it's settled - thus nobody has any reason to talk at all or reveal even one thing - kinda exactly what Duke woulda wanted and what Lance Thomas would have wanted so he wouldn't forever be a goat among Duke fans, and what the jewelry store wanted to get their $$ fast, end this suit, and stay out of trouble with other future wealthy Dukies who might buy bling!

We'll never hear another word about this again and NCAA will never ask a single question -

[DoubleJayAlum]

We'll never hear another word about this again and NCAA will never ask a single question -

I'd change the above to "there is nothing the NCAA can do about it".

The problem as I stated in this thread early on (although it looks like some of my posts have been deleted), the NCAA has no subpoena power. Without it, nobody has to talk to the NCAA. The jeweler can refuse to answer questions as can Thomas since he is no longer in school.

In this case, it isn't so much the NCAA doesn't want to do anything, but more of an issue of they can't force anybody to cooperate which essentially puts the entire investigation at an end.

Remember -- it isn't what you think happened, it is what you can prove. That is why I predicted this would go nowhere from the start. People will only talk to the NCAA when they want something from the NCAA. In this case the jeweler just wanted to get paid (like he did when he sued Dez Bryant); he doesn't care about any eligibility issues and doesn't want to spend his time dealing with that matter and the NCAA can't make him.

Want to fix the NCAA? Give them subpoena powers!

[JMM28]

I'd change the above to "there is nothing the NCAA can do about it".

The problem as I stated in this thread early on (although it looks like some of my posts have been deleted), the NCAA has no subpoena power. Without it, nobody has to talk to the NCAA. The jeweler can refuse to answer questions as can Thomas since he is no longer in school.

In this case, it isn't so much the NCAA doesn't want to do anything, but more of an issue of they can't force anybody to cooperate which essentially puts the entire investigation at an end.

Remember -- it isn't what you think happened, it is what you can prove. That is why I predicted this would go nowhere from the start. People will only talk to the NCAA when they want something from the NCAA. In this case the jeweler just wanted to get paid (like he did when he sued Dez Bryant); he doesn't care about any eligibility issues and doesn't want to spend his time dealing with that matter and the NCAA can't make him.

Want to fix the NCAA? Give them subpoena powers!

Lack of subpoena power didn't stop the NCAA and Janet Justus from steamrolling around Peoria in the late 80's investigating Versace and Bradley. I'd bet they won't do 10% of that to Duke...

[tornado]

this I agree with you on!

and DJA - lack of subpoena power really should not matter at all since the NCAA is not limited by fairness, due process, or government limitations because it IS a private organization of consenting member schools who have all signed FULL, informed consent and agreements to abide by NCAA's rulings.
NCAA acted swiftly and without much investigation or due process in the Penn State case - using mostly published reports and hearsay - yet the came down hard and nailed PSU with massive penalties!
So they can punish perceived violators if they WANT to....see my comment on the UNC case...

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=262194#post262194

[DoubleJayAlum]

NCAA acted swiftly and without much investigation or due process in the Penn State case - using mostly published reports and hearsay - yet the came down hard and nailed PSU with massive penalties!

Penn St conducted its own investigation and published the report. The NCAA used that report to levy fines and penalties.

I suspect we will not ever see another institution have such a report prepared ever again!

[SFP]

There's ways around this investigation if someone wanted to do something. The IRS could get involved fairly quickly because how did a college player from modest means get a hold of $30 K in the first place? Someone wanted to make a name for himself and went after Barry Bonds the same thing could happen here but I doubt it. It could be as simple as a North Carolina graduate that works for the IRS audit department decides he wants to take Duke down. We all know something is fishy here and where there is smoke there is fire.

[tornado]

....We all know something is fishy here and where there is smoke there is fire.

glad to see you say that...

http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=261968#post261968

[DoubleJayAlum]

Lack of subpoena power didn't stop the NCAA and Janet Justus from steamrolling around Peoria in the late 80's investigating Versace and Bradley. I'd bet they won't do 10% of that to Duke...

Two things:

(1) Institutions, coaches and current players have to cooperate, but former players and third parties (e.g., jewelers) do not.

(2) It is quite possible, and in this case I'd even say probably likely, that Duke had no idea that this nimrod went and borrowed money from the jeweler in the first place. I am a bit hesitant to blame an institution for every little thing a kid does on his spare time, unless it involves a booster or was arranged by a school. Blame the kid? You bet!

[DoubleJayAlum]

and DJA - lack of subpoena power really should not matter at all since the NCAA is not limited by fairness, due process, or government limitations because it IS a private organization of consenting member schools who have all signed FULL, informed consent and agreements to abide by NCAA's rulings.

It is true that institutions have to abide by the decisions in a general sense, but they don't have to abide by decisions if a judge throws them out for lack of evidence. Times have changed - kids are now taking the NCAA to court... and winning occasionally. Just yesterday I read a story about an incoming frosh at Xavier that is filing suit because the NCAA declared him ineligible. The NCAA knows it has to have evidence and they just don't have any in the Thomas case because nobody will talk to them and nobody that has the info the NCAA desires can be compelled to do so.

NCAA acted swiftly and without much investigation or due process in the Penn State case - using mostly published reports and hearsay - yet the came down hard and nailed PSU with massive penalties!
So they can punish perceived violators if they WANT to....

As stated above, Penn St did their own formal investigation, released the report and then accepted the reports findings as their own. On top of that, Penn St actually was in negotiations with the NCAA and entered into a CONSENT DECREE with the NCAA. They can't argue the punishment after they already accepted it.... Penn St didn't want to fight; they wanted to move past the whole Sandusky thing and put it behind them.