The infractions case against Kansas basketball concluded Wednesday more than four years after it began. What a colossal waste of time. When it began, it was an NCAA violation to accept a free lunch. By the end, players could legally drive Escalades provided by boosters thanks to NIL freedoms.
In that span, entire recruiting classes were able to get their degrees – or signing bonuses.
No matter what your perception of what Kansas did or didn’t do, there certainly wasn’t evolution on the part of the body that decided the program’s fate. The Independent Accountability Resolution Process was created in 2018 in the wake of the college basketball FBI/SDNY bribery and corruption scandal in 2017. It was specifically designed to take on complex and major cases. It was supposed to streamline the process.
The “case procedural timeline” released Wednesday by the IARP contained 93 bullet points.
And that was considered a summary, but it summarized the IARP on several fronts.
It is laughable at the length of time it took to decide, well, not much of anything. Remember, this was supposed to be a signature case in which Adidas bag men were supposedly paying players to go to KU.
Kansas was initially hit with charges of five NCAA Level I violations. At the beginning, the school vehemently denied the allegations calling them “simply baseless.” But in time suspended coach Bill Self and assistant coach Kurtis Townsend for four games last season. Whether that helped in Wednesday’s decision, it turned out to be enough because the only thing that mattered was whether the IARP would hammer the Jayhawks.
It didn’t because the only penalty that matters to anyone is a postseason ban.
Anything short of that was a win for Kansas. So, Kansas won on Wednesday. Big time. The Jayhawks will have to vacate some wins from 2017-18, take down the 2018 Final Four banner and deal with some recruiting limitations….
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