[theVILLE]

http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/cont...CID=978973
It appears some think like I do...lol
At the College Basketball Roundtable each week, we ask each member of the coverage staff for his opinion about a current topic in the sport. We have two questions this week - one Saturday and one today.

TODAY'S QUESTION: Is the NCAA punishment of Memphis appropriate? If not, what could the group do to truly punish schools and coaches involved in similar situations?



Derrick Rose led Memphis to 38 wins and the Final Four, and moved on to the NBA.
The NCAA's punishment is feeble and doesn't really solve any problems, but what else can the NCAA do? The NCAA Clearinghouse approved Derrick Rose to play even though he failed to get a qualifying score on the ACT three times in Chicago before passing the SAT in Detroit. If the NCAA doesn't have the power to apply the this-doesn't-smell-right test to ACT and SAT scores until a year after the fact, how can it hand out more serious punishments without looking foolish? The NCAA's ability to investigate programs, coaches and athletes is limited; its ability to penalize violations is equally limited. The end result of vacated wins is ludicrous, but the NCAA doesn't have much recourse when the organization itself is responsible for allowing Rose to play.

- DAVID FOX

Memphis certainly has been embarrassed by this whole fiasco, and the idea that the school has to forfeit some $615,000 in revenue from the 2008 NCAA tournament run does some damage. But the whole idea of vacated wins is ludicrous. While vacating wins is embarrassing, who truly cares? The school made it to the Final Four; that memory isn't suddenly going to be erased from the mind of basketball fans. If the NCAA truly wants to punish teams, take away four or five scholarships, levy some postseason bans and keep teams off TV. As for John Calipari, this is twice that he has had a Final Four appearance vacated; he stands alone in NCAA history with two. And spare me the talk about how he wasn't found at fault by the NCAA. Why is it that head coaches, such as Calipari, can get all the credit and glory for the good things that go on in a program, yet almost always seem to avoid blame when something goes wrong? If you don't think that the higher-ups in the Memphis basketball office knew everything about Derrick Rose's academic situation, you're na? enough to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the idea that all hard work is rewarded.

- MIKE HUGUENIN

The NCAA's "punishment" of Memphis is a joke and does nothing to deter coaches from bending the rules in the future. While it wouldn't have been fair to penalize new coach Josh Pastner and members of the current team, the NCAA could've found other ways to penalize the school. Eliminate a scholarship or two in 2010-11, take away some in-home visits ? heck, fine the athletic director for a lack of oversight. Until the NCAA begins taking drastic measures, cheating in college basketball will continue to be widespread. There also should be harsher consequences for coaches. The NCAA should've done a more thorough investigation of what truly occurred with Derrick Rose and his allegedly fraudulent test score. If the Committee on Infractions discovered that John Calipari had any knowledge of or involvement in the situation, he should've been suspended without pay for a year ? if not more. No one will take the NCAA seriously until it decides to get tough.

- JASON KING

I guess the NCAA punishment for Memphis is appropriate since it's in line with the NCAA's recent history of forcing schools to vacate wins instead of ordering scholarship reductions, but I don't think it's much of a deterrent. The idea of vacating wins works for Florida State's football program ? whether or not you think that punishment was fair ? because of how it might affect Bobby Bowden's quest to become the winningest coach in major college football history. But in just about every other instance, it seems ludicrous to think the threat of vacating wins is going to prevent teams from cheating. The NCAA can force a school to remove a Final Four banner, but it can't erase the memories of fans who watched Derrick Rose lead Memphis to the NCAA championship game. The reduction of scholarships is a far more effective deterrent because it successfully hinders a program's future instead of trying in vain to change its past. In the most serious cases, a program should face an NCAA tournament ban or a TV ban. I don't know what the NCAA could have done to Calipari in this situation since he wasn't directly implicated, but I'd like to see the NCAA take more action against coaches who clearly act in the wrong. I can think of no better deterrent than the eight-year ban that the NCAA handed to former California coach Todd Bozeman (now at Morgan State) back in the 1990s. The NCAA hasn't come down nearly that hard on a coach since.

- STEVE MEGARGEE