OPINION: Good call, NCAA

This is going to sound strange when said aloud: The NCAA got it right.

In handing down what is really a rather lenient decision with regard to the IU men’s basketball team’s five major infractions, the NCAA Committee on Infractions made the correct decision. The details are as follows:

• The University is placed under a three-year probationary period, during which time it is basically expected to stay squeaky clean in all regards.

• The rest of the terms of IU’s self-sanctions, including all scholarship reductions, are still in place. The NCAA in essence accepted those penalties as sufficient, with the probation.

All in all, not too harsh, wouldn’t you say?

“We have to be sure that what the committee does reflects the seriousness of the violations and the nature of the violations,” committee chair Josephine Potuto said.

They did. There were two greater penalties that the NCAA might have reasonably handed down for these sins: A postseason ban and/or vacation of records.

Potuto herself said no vacation of wins was ever discussed, because nowhere in the case were ineligible players involved.

As for the possible postseason ban, she did not specify in the Tuesday teleconference why that particular sanction was taken off the table, but it seems more than reasonable.

Why punish players – particularly these players, so many of whom had absolutely no involvement in this at all – with a ban? None of the violations were committed by players or, presumably, with their encouragement or support. I think it’s safe to say D.J. White wasn’t the one goading Sampson to answer his phone.

When asked, Potuto said it was never taken into consideration whether further punishing of IU after the University had already come down so hard on itself would discourage other institutions from self-reporting and sanctioning in the future.

“Every institution, as a requirement of (NCAA) membership, takes on the responsibility to cooperate with NCAA investigations, and it takes on the responsibility to be rules compliant,” Potuto said. “I would not want to take the position that an institution would lightly assume that responsibility because of what happened in a particular infractions case.”

Still, let’s say the NCAA handed down a stiff extra punch for that which was done under former coach Kelvin Sampson, even after all IU did to itself, not even counting the absolute implosion and rebuilding underway within the program.

Now think about this: What motivation would any school have to self-report in the future, given IU’s track record for compliance and the lengths to which it went to punish itself, if the NCAA still came down like the long arm of the lord?

Little to none.

But the NCAA got it right this time, something not often said in these cases. Good for them.

See you next week.