In UNLV Ruling, NCAA Rights a Wrong

One other multiple-choice list the NCAA had to ponder before doling out the punishment that ended a 13-year Shark hunt:

Potential Results From An Outright Ban Of Nevada Las Vegas From The 1991 NCAA Basketball Tournament.

a) One more joy-filled ride through this country’s legal system, meaning a 14th year of glorious litigation, followed by a 15th, and maybe a 16th while UNLV, in the interim, obtains a court order to keep its Rebels postseason-ready.

b) A 30-0 UNLV team with nowhere to go, an NCAA tournament played to determine who’s No. 2 and a 1991 championship trophy sent back to the shop for asterisk enhancement.

c) The Poulan/Weedeater/USF&G;/Bally’s War de Trump, a renegade “real national championship” game between outlaw UNLV and the NCAA winner, with Don King promoting, Ted Turner broadcasting and the Mirage Hotel hosting. In the parking lot.

For the NCAA, it was name your nightmare. One way or another, whichever way the NCAA turned, there was going to be a mess.

Of course, the NCAA was the original polluter, dumping the toxic waste four months ago with its ludicrous ruling to penalize UNLV now for alleged crimes committed when Larry Johnson and Stacey Augmon were in the third grade. So Tark got to them, then, too? Ply them with a a couple of Schwinns? A few trips to Tastee-Freeze?

The NCAA couldn’t get Jerry Tarkanian in 1977, couldn’t get him through the entire Carter and Reagan administrations, but when it saw a crack in the judicial door this summer, it went for the hammer, turning a blind eye to the ethical and procedural obstacles that should have shut it down within seconds.

Ethical: The UNLV players of 1990-91 should not have to pay for the sins of ’77. Neither should the UNLV players of 1991-92, but that’s the deal UNLV cut and that’s the deal it now must live with.

Thirteen years is a long time--long enough for entire athletic and academic administrative staffs at UNLV to turn over. From 1977 to 1990, the only salient constant was the coach and if the NCAA still felt the need to tag someone, it should have been The Bald One and no one else.

Procedural: Thirteen years is also long enough to render pages of NCAA regulations obsolete. This is why Tarkanian remains outside NCAA cross hairs, at least on this set of charges.

Before 1985, the NCAA could not directly sanction a head coach for rules violations; only the school could sanction the coach. UNLV made such an attempt in 1977, but Tarkanian sought, and won, an injunction from the District Court in Las Vegas prohibiting the university from taking action against him.

The injunction still stands and so does Tarkanian, immune from any suspension and/or fine because 1977 guidelines continue to govern this case.

Tark’s in-court team is even better than his on-court team.

With the coach untouchable, the NCAA went after the players. Mistake No. 1. The intent of the NCAA infractions committee, supposedly, is to make the punishment fit the crime, but this time, the NCAA didn’t come close. The NCAA was benching its defending champion, but more than that, it was benching one of the best college basketball teams ever assembled.

As underclassmen in 1989-90, Johnson, Augmon, Greg Anthony and Anderson Hunt went 35-5 and made a mockery of the 1990 NCAA final. In 1990-91, they were going to be better. Johnson and Augmon were back as All-American bookends at forward. Anthony and Hunt were back to energize the backcourt. The only vacancy was at center--and there, Tark had redshirt George Ackles coming back and seven-foot JC transfer Elmore Spencer coming in.

Think hard about this UNLV team and it’s hard not to think about UCLA. Fact: UCLA is the last team to win back-to-back national basketball championships. Not so idle thought: UNLV is the first team to have a better-than-legitimate shot to match that feat. The best team since the Walton Bruins? It isn’t out of the question.

Paying players, slipping players free airline tickets, pressuring players into lying to NCAA investigators--none of this is good for college basketball. But barring UNLV from the next championship tournament--you can place that under the same heading.

Unless it is proved that this group was illegally assembled or compensated, it deserves its chance at history. On this much, the NCAA and UNLV finally agreed last week.

The NCAA didn’t cave in.

The NCAA didn’t back down.

The NCAA didn’t turn yellow.

What the NCAA did do was right a wrong before it became too late and find a solution that wasn’t perfect but might have been the best available. Given the conditions--”unprecedented” in the understated words of the infractions committee chairman--it was the correct call.

You can accuse Tark of pulling another fast one, if any maneuver requiring 13 years can be considered fast. You can accuse Tark of selling out UNLV’s future--a future that might or might not include Tark--for the golden moment at hand.

If you do, you’ll probably be interested in the Lloyd Daniels charges, due to hit UNLV within the month. Post-1985 regulations apply to this one.