In response to an ongoing investigation into violations that reportedly took place in 2007 and were self reported by the school, Syracuse has instituted their own postseason ban for 2015, in hopes that the decision will ease any future penalties passed down from the NCAA.
Jim Boeheim’s program has come under scrutiny in recent years, largely internal, for possibly allowing players to practice and compete in competition while they were supposedly enduring disciplinary action for violating the athletic department’s internal drug policy. Household names like Fab Melo and James Sunderland also faced suspensions, including Melo missing the 2012 NCAA Tournament, for academic issues during their time in the program.
It is safe to say that at this point, Boeheim’s recent evidence of having his program under strict control isn’t the strongest. It is also necessary to say that no members of this year’s team are alleged to have been involved in any conduct that is currently being punished or investigated.
Given that fact, the decision to ban the program from participating in the postseason–this includes the NCAA Tournament, NIT and even the ACC Tournament, which will now be comprised of only the other 14 teams in the conference–isn’t just irresponsible, but it is flatly reprehensible.
Decisions like this, ones that come about midseason, accomplish little but pitting the student-athletes hell bent on competing in practice and under bright arena lights for the university, against that very institution. After all, what will Rakeem Christmas’ lasting memory be of his final season? Should he eventually be asked to donate to the program, or be a spokesperson for Orange basketball down the line, no one could blame him for feeling hesitant. His chance at making another run into March Madness, or to lead the charge towards a surprising title during the ACC Tournament, is now gone. He has just nine games left in his college career, nine games left of his breakout season where he has finally put together his entire package for the full view of professional scouts.
Syracuse cut short his career, because they determined that this year’s team was worth offering up for sacrifice. Syracuse’s athletic department determined that a group of young men, none older than 23 years old, was fit to be punished for the department’s own lack of oversight and discipline.
While the saga is likely far from over, with the NCAA still waiting to decide its full punishment, we can feel confident in knowing that Boeheim and his athletic director, Dr. Darryl Gross, will live to see another day. We can feel confident that those two and their healthy contracts, will have a chance to turn things around and push Syracuse’s program further into the new days of conference realignment. Their pocket books will be just fine.
No punishment in college sports is fair all the way around. Reducing a program’s available scholarships only works to prevent one, two or ten young athletes from getting a chance to fulfill their dream of college athletics, while a program like Syracuse can and will rebound from a string of potential down years. Fining an athletic department is often a futile course of action, not when boosters, unwilling to see their alma mater suffer, can step up and lend a check. Someone always gets away with fewer bruises than they deserve, and others walk away limping and scattered, when their role may have been minor at best.
Such is the world that we live in right now, a world that is fine with pimping out its young athletes for unbelievable profit and then passing on the blame to the next employee on the totem pole.
This year’s team wasn’t Final Four material, at least based on what we all have observed so far. Them shouldering the burden for their predecessor’s (and coaches, administrators, etc.) mistakes will likely result in other Syracuse teams more equipped for a deep run to have that chance.
As it is, they have been hung to dry by the same people that came into their living rooms during their high school recruitment and told each family to trust them, that they would look out for the player’s best interest. They would be role models, father figures and outlets of support for life.
Instead, Boeheim and the program he represents have shown to be cowards and hypocrites, willing to hold hostage a team of young men guilty of nothing but being eligible either too early or too late.
