So it's official now?

[LA_Mustang]

So I assume that when our starting lineup looks like the Washington Generals next year, they'll still be expecting huge sums of money for the privilege of watching?

Are you being serious? We are bringing in arguably the our best recruiting class ever. We will return a first team AAC guard in Nic. Sterling and both Ben's are very good players. Tolbert will be eligible. It's amazing how this board overreacts and throws out silly statements.

[Pony ^]

The hammer is about to come down. book it.

[EconPony'10]

Live by the sword die by the sword. We take kids who are academic risks and it happens. Hopefully we build to a point that we don't need to gamble as much. All these guys are worth the risk, but it is a risk. Move on, let's see what Ben can do.

If you are taking that attitude, then every single NCAA bball program is taking the same/more risks with much more reward.

[PonyEnergy]

I just covered him up on my team poster at work with bagpipe music in the background.

Squad -2. Time for Sterling and Gu to step it up.

My old roommate who played under Doh says it is almost impossible to become ineligible. Its easy for us all to blame the school, cause its a common enemy and lets us continue to love our players. But the truth is all you have to do is SHOW UP to the ALEC, and the tutors will do everything for you. Keith had academics handed to him and didn't take advantage of it because of his kid, or his maturity, or because of any other reason. I'd still love to tie RGT's shoelaces together when he isn't looking as much as the next guy, but this might be more on Keith than most of you are willing to admit. Coming from his biggest fan

great post MM / JH

this is a great post

-grand little

[ojaipony]

Well, that's a shame.

Next man up.

More time for Sterling/BenE.

You're in college, bro. I get it about "student-athlete" oxymoron etc etc but it's all there for the taking. Hope you stay, get eligible, and have a monster year next year and then go on to be a lottery pick.

If not, I wish you the best.

Pony Up!

[Puckhead48E]

From another thread, CoxMustang's essential reading in response to chicken little:

Palmskee wrote:

Bull. One player becomes ineligible and it could just be the players fault. Three players in the same season? That's a pattern.

Yeah, that pattern is that Coach Brown had to recruit a number of academic risky kids to get this turned around quickly. I would give him an A+ for effort and a B for execution. We have a 2015 class signed that 95% of D-1 schools would give their left nut for, we run a solid 8/9 deep this year (without KF) and the AAC is down right now (giving us some margin for error). It doesn't matter how much money daddy has, you don't go from doormat to FF contender in three years. What Coach Brown has done is amazing. Breath it in and get your [deleted] to the game Saturday.

Let's not be pu$$ies about this.

[PonyTime]

Don't throw UCONN in there...they are a state school with all of those special exceptions for regulatory leniency given to them by the NCAA's. G'town definitely took care of their players....but the big man also hammered home academics and pushed degrees (you don't wonder why Iverson never got that Nike contract after leaving G'town without a degree....look at who was on Nike's board). Stanford and Duke? Really? You think any of those kids going there don't expect to have to at least go to a study session or attend the requisite minimums? You think any kid is going to ignore Coach K when he just has someone from the list of NBA alums call that kid and lay it down for them? If you are trying to make a case, try to be less lazy than the guys declared ineligible because they refused to even attend classes.

so we should get Jon Konkac to call our players?

Jerryl Sasser can call them. Wait - scratch that.

[ponyinNC]

Can't wait to see how many ignorant statements grounded in fantasy we can pack into one thread.

ok, educate us then. because I see a pattern of SMU basketball players becoming ineligible - JMart, KF, and MK.

So either ALL of these guys are idiots and don't make ANY effort -- or much more likely, our school still does not GET IT -

And guys, you don't have to make the illogical leap to comapre us to UNC if we let 1 or 2 players slide. C'mon.

If Stanford, UConn, Duke, G'town can do it - we should be able to keep guys eligible as well. Stop defending your school for once, take off your SMU-colored glasses and realize that we have a SYSTEMIC issue here!

Don't throw UCONN in there...they are a state school with all of those special exceptions for regulatory leniency given to them by the NCAA's. G'town definitely took care of their players....but the big man also hammered home academics and pushed degrees (you don't wonder why Iverson never got that Nike contract after leaving G'town without a degree....look at who was on Nike's board). Stanford and Duke? Really? You think any of those kids going there don't expect to have to at least go to a study session or attend the requisite minimums? You think any kid is going to ignore Coach K when he just has someone from the list of NBA alums call that kid and lay it down for them? If you are trying to make a case, try to be less lazy than the guys declared ineligible because they refused to even attend classes.

I am a lawyer and I don't need help on making a case thank you very much Puckhead. I named successful bb programs that also have high academic standards. Period. Why can't we get it done?

[Puckhead48E]

Sooooo, how does OSU keep Cardale Jones eligible if he doesn't even intend to attend classes? Sadly, I am sure there are many here who would prefer we just stop taking attendance and keeping score in the classroom because that might lower the score on the court.

Relax!

[Bergermeister]

On the academic side, I have to wonder if our athletic department and basketball staff are even doing the basics at this point.

Does anyone on the basketball staff do class checks?

Do these guys have mandatory appointments with a tutor for every class they're taking at least once a week?

Do these guys have mandatory study hall periods during the week?

Does an academic advisor travel with the team to coordinate study periods while on the road?

Does the ALEC have the resources to be both the student-athlete academic support center and the academic support center for the rest of the student body?

Does anyone on the basketball staff do class checks? YES
Do these guys have mandatory appointments with a tutor for every class they're taking at least once a week? YES
Do these guys have mandatory study hall periods during the week? YES
Does an academic advisor travel with the team to coordinate study periods while on the road? YES
Does the ALEC have the resources to be both the student-athlete academic support center and the academic support center for the rest of the student body? YES

[Pony ^]

So UNC has been caught having fake classes for a decade and gets away with it but we can't keep 3 guys eligible?

[Puckhead48E]

ok, educate us then. because I see a pattern of SMU basketball players becoming ineligible - JMart, KF, and MK.

So either ALL of these guys are idiots and don't make ANY effort -- or much more likely, our school still does not GET IT -

And guys, you don't have to make the illogical leap to comapre us to UNC if we let 1 or 2 players slide. C'mon.

If Stanford, UConn, Duke, G'town can do it - we should be able to keep guys eligible as well. Stop defending your school for once, take off your SMU-colored glasses and realize that we have a SYSTEMIC issue here![/quote]

Don't throw UCONN in there...they are a state school with all of those special exceptions for regulatory leniency given to them by the NCAA's. G'town definitely took care of their players....but the big man also hammered home academics and pushed degrees (you don't wonder why Iverson never got that Nike contract after leaving G'town without a degree....look at who was on Nike's board). Stanford and Duke? Really? You think any of those kids going there don't expect to have to at least go to a study session or attend the requisite minimums? You think any kid is going to ignore Coach K when he just has someone from the list of NBA alums call that kid and lay it down for them? If you are trying to make a case, try to be less lazy than the guys declared ineligible because they refused to even attend classes.[/quote]

I am a lawyer and I don't need help on making a case thank you very much Puckhead. I named successful bb programs that also have high academic standards. Period. Why can't we get it done?[/quote]

Ooooohhhhhhh....congrats on being a lawyer, no one asked.
However, since you expressed your amazing ability to make a case, here is some help. If your argument is to reference two private schools with an excellent academic tradition that also have a long tradition of athletic success, one private school with a 20+ year run of success in one sport under a bigger-than-life coach that used the system, and a state school that has been under investigation by the NCAA numerous times during their 20+ year run of success in one sport, that $5 retainer might be a bit too high.

And where exactly did you get UCONN and high academic standards from?

[RGV Pony]

So UNC has been caught having fake classes for a decade and gets away with it but we can't keep 3 guys eligible?

Well, we got one of the three eligible, through a herculean effort.

Another of the three couldnt pass SIX CREDITS in the fall. Maybe he got three..but six credits was all that was required. Two classes. How is that accomplished? You don't go is one. maybe there's another. Oh, and when that happened, he even had J-term to fix it. But opted out instead.

The third we know of not one but two appeals that were attempted by SMU.

Hell even the classes for which Minnesota got their Final Four defrocked had attendance requirements and [admittedly ghost-written] papers required

[shadowman]

The hammer is about to come down. book it.

This would be something I don't understand, many are complaining that we don't push the envelope and be creative in keeping players eligible, basically wanting the program to live on the outer edge of the razor thin line of what is legal and what is not.

We say SMU is playing it too safe and by the book. Then in the next sentence, we get rumors and shadowy predictions that SMU is about to be in big trouble.

If that is the case, then SMU must have went to enormous and possibly illegal lengths to keep these players eligible and is about to get caught, basically doing what many on here wanted from the program and the administration.

Which is it, we didn't do enough, played it by the book and lost players to eligibility, or we did too much and got caught?

[Pony_Law]

Live by the sword die by the sword. We take kids who are academic risks and it happens. Hopefully we build to a point that we don't need to gamble as much. All these guys are worth the risk, but it is a risk. Move on, let's see what Ben can do.

If you are taking that attitude, then every single NCAA bball program are taking the same/more risks with much more reward.

Not true. Keith came from a high school in the midst of a grade cheating scandal, so it's quite possible he hadn't had any kind of real education since 8th grade. Not every high level recruit is in that particularly bad situation. Just because you can hoop and are black does not mean you are an idiot or don't work [deleted] your academics, or went to a school that gave you NCAA minimum grades automatically.