Does today’s NCAA release not bode well for Kanter?

Eammon Brennan of espn.com takes a look at the NCAA’s release this afternoon defending its rulings in the Cameron Newton and Ohio State cases, and sees something that may not bode well for Enes Kanter.

In the release, the NCAA says:

Put simply, had Cam Newton’s father or a third party actually received money or benefits for his recruitment, Cam Newton would have been declared ineligible regardless of his lack of knowledge.

Brennan’s take:

Why does this matter for Kentucky and Enes Kanter? Because Kentucky’s current case for Kanter’s eligibility is based on the idea that Kanter is just like Newton: His parents may have been organizing and/or receiving benefits for their son’s talent, but the son didn’t know about it, and that makes it OK. That’s the “new information” Kentucky presented to the NCAA to land a second hearing and a second chance at getting its all-important Turkish big man eligible.

With the quoted portion above, the NCAA seems to have squashed that notion, albeit indirectly. Kentucky, the Kanters and the NCAA have all agreed to the basic fact that Kanter did receive about $30,000 for his time with a club team in Turkey. Whether he knew about that monetary exchange or not doesn’t seem to matter. All that matters, apparently, is whether money was exchanged at all.

(Hat tip Aaron’s UK Basketball Blog)

John Clay

johnclay.bloginky.com

Why isn’t NCAA vacating Ohio State’s football seasons?

AOL FanHouse’s Clay Travis, an attorney who can also write, makes an arresting case for just how illogical and inconsistent the NCAA has been with its 2010 rulings. The grid-obsessed Travis makes no mention of Enes Kanter, but he does bring up an interesting question about Ohio State football and the word “vacate”, as in vacating a season for playing an ineligible player.

An excerpt:

4. Why isn’t Ohio State’s entire 2009 and 2010 season vacated?

This is the second part of the NCAA ruling, the one no one has questioned. If playing with ineligible players leads to vacated wins, why isn’t Ohio State being forced to vacate its past two football seasons when ineligible players, by its own admission, took the field?

The NCAA says the players didn’t gain a competitive advantage. Okay, gotcha. But did Alabama gain a competitive advantage when its players resold textbooks? Did that make them better at tackling or catching? Of course not. But it was an improper benefit.

So why did Alabama vacate 21 wins in 2005, ‘06 and ‘07 and Ohio State vacates none?

How can you reconcile this?

You can’t.

Think John Calipari might be asking the same question?

John Clay

johnclay.bloginky.com