As far as I know, Southern Methodist University (S.M.U.) is considered a pretty good school; it is ranked #61 by US News. Its basketball team is tournament-worthy, its coach, Larry Brown, is in the basketball Hall of Fame. Yet, the N.C.A.A. has banned S.M.U. from the postseason this year and suspended its coach for nine games. Today's NY Times has an excellent article revealing the factors behind the NCAA decision.
SMU must have really wanted to be a major player in the college basketball world, for they hired Brown even though the NCAA had sanctioned two of the teams he coached previously, Kansas and UCLA. With Kansas, he admitted to illegal payments and having assistants who acted as bagmen. With UCLA, two of his players were academically ineligible.
The other reason for the NCAA's actions was Keith Frazier, a superstar in high school and for SMU. It seems as though Frazier did not have much of an education; he had many absences and failing grades. But he was a hell of a basketball player. He was so good that top officials at S.M.U. ignored their own professors, who recommended that Frazier not be admitted to S.M.U., an academically tough university. A former faculty president said, “If athletes go to most classes, if they go to tutoring, we will carry most of them and make sure they pass and get a diploma.”
After leaving S.M.U., Frazier transferred to North Texas, where his A.A.U. coaches have connections.
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