Could The IRP Ruling In The NC State Case Foretell Outcomes For Other FBI Hoops Cases?
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Could The IRP Ruling In The NC State Case Foretell Outcomes For Other FBI Hoops Cases?
Executive Summary
With a decision finally arriving in late December in the infractions case involving North Carolina State men’s basketball, the Independent Resolution Panel’s first-ever ruling may provide insight into how the adjudicative body could approach the other high-profile men’s basketball infractions cases stemming from the FBI’s bombshell college basketball investigation in 2017.
Questions and speculation about how the Independent Accountability Resolution Process (IARP) might work swirled for the three years and eight months since its creation by the NCAA upon recommendation by the Commission on College Basketball.
The IRP, the panel review at the end of the IARP tasked with hearing the case and doling out penalties, hit NC State with one year of probation, fines, recruiting limitations and scholarship reductions but no postseason ban, a surprise to many infractions observers.
One IRP member told ESPN that the panel “basically determined that we didn't want to hurt or punish the student-athletes that are currently competing” by handing NC State a postseason ban.
The process, though criticized primarily for its length and repetitive nature, received praise in some college athletics circles.
Postseason bans in particular have long been debated as an effective deterrent for athletics infractions cases.
Those in favor of postseason bans argue that they prevent rules violators from receiving the ultimate prize in college sports and serve as a significant financial punishment.
Opponents of the penalty, often given out after those who violated NCAA rules have left the university in question, say it too often wrongly punishes athletes and coaches who had nothing to do with the original infractions.
The question now is how the NC State case — which included Level I violations, deemed to be the most egregious infractions in the NCAA rulebook — could impact the IARP’s next five high-profile cases involving Arizona, Kansas, Louisville, LSU and Memphis.
Four of those cases — Arizona, Kansas, Louisville and LSU — stemmed from the FBI investigation into conspiracy and wire fraud in college basketball recruiting.
With mounting frustration with the NCAA’s in-house infractions process among NCAA members and conference commissioners, the IARP could represent what a sea change in enforcement and infractions looks like, either itself becoming a more prominently-used adjudicative process or laying the foundation for a variation of it in the future.
The sighs of relief from North Carolina State athletics and its fans, mixed with the exhales from college sports observers and supporters of other college basketball programs currently in the NCAA enforcement crosshairs, could’ve blown down Fort Knox in December.
That was when the Independent Resolution Panel, the adjudicative body tasked with deciding some of the NCAA’s most complex infractions cases, punished NC State men’s basketball for violations committed in 2015 without issuing a postseason ban for the program. Instead, the IRP hit NC State with financial penalties, recruiting limitations and scholarship reductions in addition to individual show-cause orders for two former coaches, including ex-head coach Mark Gottfried, who was fired seven months before the FBI’s seismic investigation of college basketball recruiting became public.
The ruling, the first issued by the IRP, was a significant victory for NC State’s program as well as advocates who have pushed the NCAA over the years to move away from postseason bans as punishment when the infractions in question occurred before the current athletes and/or coaches arrived at the university.
Those advocates hope the NC State decision, along with language in the proposed NCAA constitution that says division and conference regulation “must ensure to the greatest extent possible that penalties imposed for infractions do not punish programs or student-athletes innocent of the infractions,” suggests a sea change in infractions punishment. It could very well be good news, too, for the five other schools — Arizona, Kansas, Louisville, LSU and Memphis — awaiting decisions as part of the IARP. Four of them, excluding Memphis, had coaches or student-athletes caught up like NC State in the FBI investigation.
"We specifically discussed whether or not we were going to impose a postseason ban, and we basically determined that we didn't want to hurt or punish the student-athletes that (sic) are currently competing," Dana Welch, an arbitrator who served on the IRP in NC State’s case, told reporters.
Mike DeCourcy, a columnist for The Sporting News, wrote, “I’ve said forever that postseason bans subsequent to the start of the school year should be, well, banned, because it amounts to changing the rules on athletes in the middle of the game,” though he was otherwise critical of the financial and recruiting penalties for not being stiff enough.
Stu Brown, a lawyer who specializes in NCAA infractions cases and is currently involved in the University of Louisville’s IARP case, told The (Louisville) Courier-Journal that the NC State ruling “hopefully signals an approach by the NCAA to find alternative penalties that do not necessarily include a postseason ban.”
“I hope that is the trend,” Brown said. “There are alternative and frankly more effective and fair ways to punish an institution. And, also, the postseason ban, it not only punishes the players, but it punishes the fans as well.”
Arizona and Auburn, two schools also in the NCAA infractions crosshairs, self-imposed postseason bans last year in an attempt to lessen potentially harsh future penalties. Those decisions, however, were criticized by many as cynical because neither school’s men’s basketball team was in position to reach the NCAA Tournament. (For comparison, Louisville’s 2015-16 team was considered an Atlantic Coast Conference title contender.)
The IARP was born out of the Commission on College Basketball’s recommendations after the NCAA appointed a group of former players, coaches, administrators, lawyers and others to examine the FBI’s findings and suggest ways to clean up the sport, especially the recruitment of high school athletes. The CBC originally recommended postseason bans for up to five years as a deterrent for bad behavior, but the prevailing trend in college athletics has since shifted away from that thinking over the past three-plus years, as indicated in the proposed NCAA constitution.
An infractions case initially starts with the NCAA’s in-house enforcement group, but at any point in the process, NCAA member schools can request a move to the IARP. In those situations, an IARP panel first determines if the case is complex enough to take it on, then an investigative group called the Complex Case Unit conducts an inquiry. After the CCU passes along its findings, the IRP holds a hearing with investigators and school representatives.
The IRP includes five members with legal, education and/or sports backgrounds.
Louisville, which fired its head men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino shortly after the FBI announced its investigation, asked to move to the IARP in 2020 because, among other reasons, it “would avoid the fundamental unfairness and institutional credibility issues presented by potentially inconsistent resolutions” by the Committee on Infractions.
There is risk in schools pursuing the IARP: All rulings by the IRP are final, with no appeals allowed. What’s more, critics of the process say the required re-investigation by the CCU of cases either partially or fully investigated by NCAA enforcement staffers unnecessarily extends the proceedings and, in turn, punishes athletics programs and universities by casting the cloud of inquiry over them for a longer period.
Still, the first decision by the panel grabbed the attention of those who fear that the NCAA’s traditional infractions process, which ultimately ends with a hearing in front of the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions, may be more punitive. It was the first insight at a previously unknown commodity.
The implications go far beyond the cases currently under the IARP microscope, too. Power Five conference commissioners, namely Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey, have been vocal critics of the NCAA’s infractions process as part of their reasoning for seeking more autonomy in the organization’s structure.
If the NCAA ever does break up, a possibility increasingly speculated about in sports media, the perceived inconsistencies in enforcement would often be cited as a key source of such a split.
“Those accused of violations deserve a fair and timely outcome,” Sankey told reporters at SEC Football Media Days last summer, “and those who compete against those accused of violations deserve that same fair and timely outcome.”
In the meantime, some of the most powerful programs in men’s college basketball have their eyes on what the IRP does next, hoping the NC State ruling is a good sign of what’s to come. Even if the IRP doles out significant show-cause orders, fines, recruiting limitations and/or scholarship reductions, no postseason bans would be a big win for the schools and proponents of phasing out that type of infractions punishment.
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