More on Renardo Sidney and the NCAA

[Russ Smith]

Sidney and his attorneys were supposed to meet with the NCAA today to get status on his amateur status investigation. Apparently last week the NCAA notified his attorneys they were delaying the meeting and the attorneys vehemently opposed any delay because Sidney wants to enroll for summer school and start July 6th and any delay would make that impossible since he would still have to go through the NCAA, MSU and SEC academic checks.

I haven't been able to find any confirmation they met with the NCAA today, nobody seems to know since it's not public. The attorney said he was bringing 5 times as much paperwork as the NCAA had asked for to prevent them from stalling asking for more as a "defacto suspension." But he also says they will not bring the bank and financial records asked for by the NCAA which is of course the entire basis of the process. The NCAA is trying to find out if the Sidney family took money, how they afforded the rent on a 1.2 million dollar house in So Cal, how they lived the lifestyle they lived. refusing to provide any financial data is a risky situation because the NCAA does have the power to just say if you won't give us what we ask for, we have to assume you're hiding something and we're declaring your son ineligible. Any lawsuit would take so long his freshman year would be gone anyways. the NCAA can't subpoena the financial info so if the lawyer won't provide it, I think they have a stalemate. The lawyer actually said he was not letting the NCAA just go fishing, and that he thought "they have nothing." Sounds a bit too confrontational to me.

Will be really interesting to see what happens with Sidney and Stephenson, I'd predict neither kid will play this year but after Mayo got cleared I won't make any prediction.

 

[Russ Smith]

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=news/sports/college/basketball/mens&sa=NCB&eid=4312112

Gets better by the minute. Earlier today the attorney for the Sidney family, Donald Jackson, released a statement that the 2 day meetings went well, he's confident they did nothing wrong, and he expected Sidney to be cleared in a matter of weeks, in time for the start of the season. He also said he provided financial docs to satisfy the NCAA's request.

The NCAA later commented that they dispute that, Jackson did NOT provide bank statements as asked, and the NCAA made requests for more documentation.

Interestingly the attorney seems to be claiming most of the NCAA case is based on stories in the LA Times and Washington Post citing anonymous sources about Sidney's family living outside their means, and the father asking to be paid. I find it hard to believe the entire case is based on news reports but it's interesting.