NCAA Basketball Investigation/Lawsuit Thread (merged)

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Basically, I believe OSU is in the clear as far as losing any scholarships or another post season ban. Its going to be along the lines of returning monies and banners being taken down.

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

link

7/1/05

Smith largely agrees with NCAA findings

AP photo

New Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith talks in his office Thursday.



Hoops tickets available



COLUMBUS -- Tickets to Ohio State men's basketball games will be available for purchase beginning today, said Richelle Simonson, OSU associate director of athletics.


Season ticket prices for all 17 home games range from $221 to $306. Packages bought before Sept. 10 will also guaranteed access to season tickets through the 2008-09 season).


Call the Ohio State ticket office at (614) 292-2624 or (800) Go-Bucks, or visit www. ohiostatebuckeyes.com.
News Journal
staff report








COLUMBUS (AP) -- Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith said Thursday his department's response to NCAA allegations is on schedule.

"I anticipate we'll have more sanctions," said Smith, who was hired in April to replace the retiring Andy Geiger. "What they'll be, I have no clue. It's difficult to tell. Precedents would play a part, but I also think they (the NCAA) look at a snapshot of the times we're in. It could be everything from taking down our banners to a loss of scholarships."

Smith was speaking from his sparsely decorated office at St. John Arena, a day after highly prized recruits Greg Oden and Mike Conley verbally committed to play basketball for the Buckeyes beginning with the 2006-07 season. The Indianapolis prep stars -- Oden is considered by many to be the top high school player in the country -- said Wednesday they were confident the NCAA would not come down hard on the Buckeyes.

Ohio State revealed a list of nine NCAA violations in May. Seven took place when Jim O'Brien was head basketball coach.

The football and women's basketball teams each were accused of one violation.

Ohio State has until July 26 to respond to the allegations -- basically elaborating on questions unearthed during the lengthy NCAA investigation. Penalties are expected to be announced this fall.

"All in all, we're going to be almost close to 100 percent agreement with the NCAA on the allegations," said Smith, himself a former member of the NCAA infractions committee. "I think we will present ourselves in a positive way to the infractions committee because of the way the institution collaborated with the NCAA and our corrective measures.

"The corrective measures are the education of boosters, some of the policies we have implemented, a quick response and the unfort- unate termination of the coach, sanctions for postseason play. All those things are positives."

Geiger fired O'Brien last June, several weeks after the coach admitted he gave $6,700 to a recruit.

The NCAA also charged for- mer Buckeyes player Boban Savovic received improper be- nefits from a booster throughout his career.

Anticipating further sanctions as the scope of the investigation widened, Geiger and university President Karen Holbrook announced in December that the current team -- coached by Thad Matta -- would not participate in the 2005 postseason NCAA or NIT tournaments.

Originally published July 1, 2005

[jwinslow]

It could be everything from taking down our banners to a loss of scholarships.

Maybe I'm just an optimist, but after reading the Wake filth for weeks this sounds like further confirmation that another postseason ban (let alone two) is clearly out of the question. I thought that was the case all along, but it never hurts to hear the AD say it too.

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

LINK

7/12/05

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A judge ordered the NCAA to release all the documents on its investigation of the Ohio State University basketball program to former OSU basketball coach Jim O'Brien. Ohio Court of Claims Judge Joseph Clark also ruled Monday that those documents need not be kept confidential.

OSU fired O'Brien after he acknowledged giving a basketball recruit six thousand dollars in 1999. O'Brien says he was allowed to make the loan because the recruit wasn't eligible to play college ball.

O'Brien is suing OSU over his June 2004 firing and is seeking the $3.5 million dollars he would have been paid under his contract.

The NCAA could appeal Clark's ruling. NCAA offices were closed last night and officials could not be reached immediately for comment.

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

cbssportsline.com

7/14/05

Yet another poor schlump becomes a speed bump


July 13, 2005
By Gregg Doyel
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Tell Gregg your opinion!

Ohio State has until July 26 to respond to NCAA allegations of improprieties under former basketball coach Jim O'Brien, but July 26 is not just a deadline. It's a detail.

See, the meat of this story has already been written. It was written at Purdue, Auburn and Missouri, and the formula never changes:

Identify a plausibly culpable assistant coach. Back up the bus. Run him over. Repeat, until the NCAA is satisfied.

At Ohio State, that assistant was Paul Biancardi, now the head coach at Wright State. The NCAA already has left tire marks on Biancardi's back, and on July 26, the Buckeyes will finish him off.

In its May 16 notice to Ohio State, the NCAA labeled Biancardi as the Buckeyes' primary offender. Ohio State will agree, possibly for self-serving reasons. Even though the Buckeyes fired O'Brien in June 2004, it's not in their best interests to find more dirt on O'Brien because -- if such dirt exists -- that would leave OSU vulnerable to double jeopardy: violations and the dreaded "lack of institutional control."

Better to paint someone else -- Biancardi -- as the bad guy and move on. Whether it's true won't matter. Biancardi's career will effectively be finished.

"There's precedent in these cases that a school will throw an assistant coach under the bus to avoid 'lack of institutional control' charges," said Biancardi's lawyer, Jim Zeszutek, who said he can't comment specifically on an ongoing NCAA investigation.

"An often-used argument of a school to the NCAA is that, although under NCAA terms there may have been a lack of institutional control, 'We've done everything we can to clear our name -- don't hold us out of the postseason, don't take us off TV and make us lose money.'"

This investigation isn't necessarily about finding the truth. It's about assessing blame -- and assessing it in a way that minimizes the damage to O'Brien, and therefore to Ohio State. If an assistant coach has to go down, so be it.

"I hate to say this, but assistant coaches are expendable," said Montgomery, Ala., attorney Donald Jackson, who has represented a number of coaches before the NCAA. "They get mulched up in the system. I once had a compliance director at a school -- and this was for football, not basketball -- tell me, 'Look, if anyone goes down, it's not going to be our head coach.'"

Officials at Wright State, Ohio State and the NCAA cannot talk about the investigation, but if you were wondering which way the wind was blowing, HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel made it clear. Last month, HBO did a lengthy segment on the OSU scandal without mentioning O'Brien's name or showing his face. The bad guy, according to HBO? Paul Biancardi.

It's hard to say who should be happier about that, O'Brien or Ohio State. The school already fell on the sword once because of O'Brien, removing itself from 2005 postseason consideration. Protecting him now is the best way to insulate the current staff and players -- who had nothing to do with the allegations -- from additional sanctions.

Protecting this innocent OSU regime is the right thing to do. Sacrificing Biancardi is the wrong way to do it, unless he's as guilty as Kathleen Salyers says he is.

Salyers is the infamous ex-nanny who started this mess by seeking repayment for services rendered to ex-OSU player Boban Savovic. Salyers says she gave Savovic thousands of dollars, fed and housed him, completed some of his schoolwork and had at least one grade changed, mostly at the urging of Biancardi.


"He told me to do whatever I had to do to keep (Savovic) eligible," Salyers told HBO, referring to Biancardi.

Biancardi's response to the allegations, also due July 26, is expected to attack Salyers' credibility. That includes a Feb. 27, 2004, letter Salyers' attorney wrote to O'Brien's attorney. The letter, written before Ohio State or the NCAA knew of Salyers' allegations, seeks a cash settlement. CBS SportsLine.com obtained a copy.

"I believe that this case can be easily settled and in such a way that it is tax deductible and I firmly believe that Coach O'Brien's reputation and intervention can aid in making the settlement happen," wrote Salyers' attorney, Jeffrey Lucas. "An LLC can be formed which buys all of the movie and books rights from Kathleen Salyers ... and this ugly case can be put to bed."

Hush money, in other words.

After O'Brien and Biancardi declined, Salyers went public with her story. The rest is history, sending Ohio State onto the path trod by Purdue, Auburn and Missouri.

Purdue happily agreed when the NCAA fingered assistant Frank Kendrick for a $4,000 bank loan secured by the family of a player in the mid-1990s. Head coach Gene Keady wasn't implicated, but Kendrick has been out of college coaching since. Maybe that's justice. Or maybe assigning blame to Kendrick was the path of least resistance for everyone else involved.

At Auburn, the school fought the most serious NCAA allegations of recruiting violations from September 2003, but tried to appease the NCAA by self-reporting a former assistant, Mike Wilson, for a lesser violation. When Wilson tried to fight the charge via conference call, Jackson said, neither the NCAA nor Auburn would get on the phone. Wilson was eventually cleared, and head coach Cliff Ellis was eventually fired (for performance reasons).

At Missouri, the school got rid of assistants Lane Odom and Tony Harvey last year while keeping head coach Quin Snyder, who vowed to do a better job of monitoring his staff.

In the case of Ohio State, it's possible that the NCAA and OSU are right -- that Biancardi is the Bogeyman, and O'Brien the kind-hearted coach who trusted his staff too much.

That's the story being pursued by Ohio State and the NCAA, anyway.

If it's the truth, well, that would be a bonus.