With Memphis crying over having to take down one of its finest banners in program history because of the Derrick Rose SAT scandal, some people are saying the NCAA isn’t handling punishments evenly. Contributor JS emails in with a story from Gary Parrish at CBS Sports who says Duke got away with having Corey Maggette on their Final Four team in 1999 even though it was found out that Maggette took money while he was in high school. Duke still has the banner hanging at Cameron Indoor and Coach K still has all the wins on his record.
I’m guessing the NCAA just wants to be sympathetic because it’s reflective of the last time Duke was any good, but it really does show their selective enforcement of violations. If Maggette took money from AAU corrupter Myron Piggie (remember him, UCLA fans?), why wasn’t that season stricken from the Duke records? And an even better point (though extremely more difficult to gauge enforcement) is made by JS: why doesn’t the NCAA return the money it made off Memphis and Duke those years? Perhaps that’s why they’re so slow to dole out punishments.
