NCAA rules Shabazz Muhammad ineligible "for now"

[Russ Smith]

Weird situation. UCLA thought he was going to be cleared to play Friday in the opener, they pushed the NCAA to make a ruling, and the NCAA shocked them by saying not eligible. ESPN misreported it as for the entire season, its' an unfinished investigation so they said he's simply ineligible for now pending investigation.


During the game Marques Johnson said something that was infuriating if true, he said that he was told that one of the major holdups the NCAA referred to is actually "coaches of the other programs involved." He's not talking about the AAU team or the HS team, he's talking about the college teams where Muhammad's unofficial visits are being questioned. So if true he's saying that the kid made 3 visits to Duke and UNC, both schools reported them to the NCAA as being improperly paid for, and now both schools are refusing to cooperate with the NCAA investigation which is delaying the kids clearance.

If true, Coach K is a vindictive you know what. I think the family gets a lot of blame here for taking visits to schools they weren't going to attend, and letting people pay for it without being SURE it was ok under NCAA rules. The dad was a bit too cocky and I think it's being thrown in his face now, but it sure looks to me like Coach K is mad the kid didn't go to Duke so he's decided to screw with the kid by reporting him and then not cooperating.

A really dangerous precedent for the NCAA to allow, what's to stop programs from doing that intentionally report a recruit on your rival, delay with information and screw up an opponents season? If the kid broke rules the NCAA needs to tell Duke and UNC give us your evidence, we'll make a ruling and go from there. But this right now is a suspension without being an official one, completely crazy.

 

[Dback Jon]

Agreed - dangerous precedent - and could make the already dirty recruiting wars even nastier.


And Coach K needs to be slapped down

 

[Russ Smith]

Agreed - dangerous precedent - and could make the already dirty recruiting wars even nastier.


And Coach K needs to be slapped down

The nutty thing is the family declared up front they weren't paying for those visits, and both Duke and UNC ALLOWED him to visit anyways. So Coach K was completely fine with those visits until the kid didn't pick Duke.

If there are other issues going on fine but so far the NCAA has only confirmed the visits part of it, and they know what happened there, he didn't pay, they don't think the guy who did pay is a pre existing relationship, so penalize that.

If there are other issues that's different but they haven't actually explained that.

 

[Russ Smith]

Story getting weirder. LA Times story today, an attorney on a flight from Memphis in August overheard the man in front of her talking about his Girlfriends case as an NCAA employee on an investigation of... Shabazz Muhammad. Said the girlfriend is named Abigail, she has a connection to Kansas, and that Shabazz was dirty, they knew he and the family took money, and he'd never play college ball he'd be ruled ineligible.

The lead investigator on his case is Abigail Grantstein whoh got her law degree at Kansas.

The attorney says she doesn't follow sports, didn't know who Bazz was, what sport he played, but she thought it was terrible that the guy would be so loudly speaking about something confidential like that and so cavalier about something so important to a kids life. So she claims she emailed the NCAA in August to tell them what she overheard.

She never heard back so when she found more about Shabazz, she contacted his lawyer, Robert Orr, and emailed him the same information. She then contacted the LA Times who ran the story.

The NCAA insists they never got the email but will look into it.

NOt sure if this is good or bad for Shabazz. Serious ethical violation of course she can't be telling her boyfriend about cases, she should probably be fired. But does also suggest they had enough suspicion to strongly believe he broke the rules.

No idea what happens, most UCLA fans seem to think it's great, NCAA will clear him soon over embarassment.

 

[SunsTzu]

Shabazz now ruled eligible and punishment conveniently is for the amount of games already missed. I think the NCAA wanted to brush this under the rug once the reports leaked about the conversation that was overheard.

 

[Dback Jon]

As the NCAA turns

 

[Russ Smith]

Shabazz now ruled eligible and punishment conveniently is for the amount of games already missed. I think the NCAA wanted to brush this under the rug once the reports leaked about the conversation that was overheard.

Yeah I don't know if that story helped or what but I think in the end the NCAA could only prove the visits to UNC and Duke and it became apparent
that it was unfair to hold Shabazz to a different standard just because Coach K was pissed he didn't pick Duke.

After all this time I'd hope that UCLA has done enough background checks to be confident that there isn't something being hidden from them(like Mayo or Rose did) so they can be confident it's ok to play Bazz without fear of something coming out later.

I'm pretty surprised I didn't think he'd clear in less than 10 games and maybe not all year.

Can't wait to see him play.

I'm betting Abigail needs both a new job and a new boyfriend