Romar gets Probation

[davidnark]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/men...sanctions_x.htm

Washington hit with probation

SEATTLE (AP) — The University of Washington men's basketball program on Thursday was placed on probation for two years by the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions because of recruiting violations by assistant coach Cameron Dollar.

The Huskies program, coached by Lorenzo Romar, was hit hard by the NCAA announcement in Indianapolis, having its financial aid awards reduced and its recruiting restricted.

The Huskies were punished for violating rules regarding phone calls, recruiting contacts and evaluations, and attendance at a noncertified summer basketball event. The team also was penalized for unethical conduct on the part of an assistant coach, Dollar.

Dollar came to Washington with Romar in 2002 from Saint Louis University. The former UCLA star was one of Romar's assistants for three seasons at Saint Louis University.

Under Romar, a former Washington player, the Huskies were 10-17 overall last season and 5-13 in the Pac-10. They were ninth in the Pac-10, finishing ahead of only Washington State and didn't make the Pac-10 tournament.

In February, Washington Athletic Director Barbara Hedges suspended Dollar without pay for one month for the series of recruiting violations. Dollar also was banned from off-campus recruiting for the remainder of the 2002-2003 academic year and had his pay reduced by 20% until April 2003 for about two dozen violations.

The suspension and pay cut cost him $13,334.

[Schasz]

Guess we won't be seeing them make any Big Dance appearances in the near future. Sure glad they didn't pull any of those sheningans while at SLU...at least they weren't caught if they did.

[billiken_roy]

imo, the tone of these penalties do not bode well for missouri and their recent shenanigans with conley. if washington's own penalties on charges for chasing a recruit that did not even come to washington, of which the self imposed penalties were far tougher than what missouri gave themselves for their conley infractions, then one would think that the ncaa will also come down hard on missouri for their tampering with a player already under scholarship that indeed did end up coming to missouri.

[cheeseman]

Please refresh my memory - I thought I read somewhere that the Conley thing had been settled with the NCAA. Maybe I am wrong.

[MUTGR]

It's been settled in the sense that Conley has been reinstated and will be able to play next year. It's my understanding the NCAA has not determined whether there will be penalties, and if so, what they will be.

For us Missouri fans, the hope is the penalties will be slight since Conley was reinstated, but who knows.

[billiken_roy]

mutgr is describing the situation exactly the way i interpreted it. the ncaa said conley could go to missouri and absolved him of blame. they did not finalize anything on missouri. missouri had voluntarily pushed back their start of recruiting this summer by a few days and apologized to everyone concerned for their lack of knowledge they werent allowed to do the things they did. i.e. their "self penalties".

personally, i thought that washington spanked themselves hard for the infractions that dollar committed talking to heyveldt early. the fact they penalized themselves and did not get heyveldt and the ncaa still smacked them around good today is where i am going with my comments above. my gosh, if they hit washington again after they seriously penalized themselves and took themselves out of the running for getting the recruit in question, why in the world would missouri get off when they basically took a week off of recruiting and still took the player they cheated on?

[jwd789]

Because VMI never filed a complaint with the NCAA. If they filed a complaint than maybe it's more of an issue. Since VMI believes it isn't an issue, it's likely nothing major will happen. Nice way to spin this into a Missouri topic though. You're good

[billiken_roy]

why in the world would vmi not file a complaint on this? i smell walmart money. regardless of a complaint filed, the wrong was far more documented than than most of dollar's problems before washington self reported the full extent of the issue. strange stuff, but it continues to show the inequities of the ncaa and their seemingly impossible task of trying to control recruiting.

[cheeseman]

Roy, you are correct - MU did self report so it really does not matter if VMI filed a complaint or not. I would think the NCAA would be encumbered to at least investigate.

[tseugnekillib]

The NCAA penalties were obviously well earned. However, I wonder if the penalties would have been less if Washington would have fired Cameron Dollar when the numerous NCAA recruiting violations were confirmed.

I had a brief conversation with Coach Romar at an Eagles/Nike/AAU event in Houston this past April. During those few minutes, Romar was not the usual open, talkative and upbeat head coach that I got to know and like while he was in St. Louis. I walked away thinking he was pretty embarrassed about his recruiting violations at Washington (even though that topic wasn't discussed).

I was very surprised to read that Cameron Dollar was listed as a finalist for the open head coaching job at Fullerton State this Spring. Perhaps, he would of got that job if he followed the recruiting rules last summer!

[MUTGR]

Someone posted on tigerboard that 6 or 7 other schools had also contacted Conley around the same time Missouri did. Suppossedly, some of these schools were members of college basketballs' elite. I realize that Tigerboard is not a credible source, but if you're interested in conspiracy theories, one is that they aren't going to slap Missouri because they'd have to slap one of the golden programs as well. How about that?

[aj_arete]

Quin and his staff's recruiting tactics, I thought the NCAA found that Mizzou committed a number of MINOR violations. In Washington's case, they were found to have committed 13 MAJOR violations. I would think that's a big difference, thus Mizzou's self-imposed penalties should be less than what Washington did.

Believe me, I'm not happy with what Mizzou did, however I think what Cameron Dollar did was worse than what anyone at Mizzou did in regards to Jason Conley. Sorry, Billiken Roy, but I doubt Mizzou will suffer additional penalties based on the evidence that has been reported so far...

[jwd789]

I heard detective Vahe on KFNS after Conley was reinstated a while back. He said it did appear there were other schools that contacted his mother and actually initiated the contact which is worse IMO. Kentucky and Maryland are 2 of the 7 rumored teams. I don't know if anything will ever happen to those 7 schools. Just because they didn't get him, doesn't mean they should get away without being punished.

[billiken_roy]

how can recruiting a player already at a different college be less major than recruiting a kid not even in college. that is screwy.

[aj_arete]

The Conley situation was more grey and blurry, while Dollar's transgression was very clear. Remember the phone calls between Conley's mom and the staff were very short in duration. It's not like Mizzou could have given her a detailed recruiting pitch in seven minutes or how ever long those calls lasted. The short duration of the calls appear to support Mizzou's contention that they were simply informing Conley's mother that her son needed to gain a release from VMI before they could talk to him.

Sorry, Billiken Roy, but it looks like there's nothing there. What Cameron Dollar did was much more serious than what Mizzou did. Every coach knows there are off periods where you cannot make any contact with a recruit and Dollar knowingly broke the rules on more than one occassion.

[Schasz]

Not saying it is right, but the previous posters may be on to something when they report Mizzou wasn't the only school caught with their hands in the cookie jar on this Conley kid. MU may get off with a crack on the knuckles if elite programs like KY were also involved in similar phone calls like Mizzou. While it is easy to question the fairness of that...heck, that's just the NCAA...they set the rules and choose to enforce them how they see fit.

I guess it is OK to look at the Romar thing and say he got a stiff penalty, and no question UW did. However, I also concur with the idea, that he should have cut his losses with Dollar and dumped his rear end when this all came out in the open. Might have made a difference, but again, with the NCAA, who knows. Hey, nobody said everything in life has to be fair.

[billiken_roy]

aj said, " Every coach knows there are off periods where you cannot make any contact with a recruit and Dollar knowingly broke the rules on more than one occassion."

oh that is right. i forgot, pretty q stated for the umteenth time, he just didnt know he was breaking a rule. the guy has been a head coach for 4 years now and before that was a top assistant at a top 10 program for almost 10 years and he just didnt know. give me a break. while washington and the other programs washed their hands of their target recruits, the fact is, that missouri followed through and stole the kid from another program. you might think that those "short" phone calls were not long enough to make a difference. but let's create a call and outline the phrases that can easily be said in any of the numerous series of five minute or less phone calls.

you have a disgruntled player ready to leave an unsuspecting program. pretty q and his staff return the call and it goes like this:

"man we really really would love to talk to you jason, but you know the rules."

hmmmmmm that took all of about 5 seconds to say on a cell phone.

how about, "boy you sure would look good in black and gold" maybe 3 seconds.

let's see, what about, "how is your mother doing?" another 2 seconds.

how about bringing up old times, "man, i remember that game i saw you play at bob gibbons tourney of champions. you were fantastic. we were foolish to not have offered you a scholarship that day. you were on fire." that probably took 20 seconds.

how about letting him know you have been following his progress so far. even cared enough to get a tape. "i saw some highlight film of that great game you had versus the citidel. g.d. you were a man amongst boys." another 20 seconds max.

now start wrapping it up. well you know we cant really talk. you have to get vmi to release you from your scholarship then we can talk in detail." probably takes about 15 seconds.

final goodbyes. "well you take care jason. i know you will do the right thing. and i hope you are as interested in missouri as we are interested in jason conley." another 15 seconds.

that one side of the conversation probably took about a minute and a half. even if jason is twice as windy in his responses, which he probably wasnt. you are less than 5 minutes. the subject matter and the quality of the statements would be devastating for a player in the mindset that he is disgruntled and feeling like he is underappreciated in his current setting. the point is, dont tell me the numerous calls that the tiger staff and conley had were ineffective. it doesnt take all that long to show a spurned player how interested and caring the tigers are. in fact any longer would probably border on overkill. a recruiter would want to save that for the face to face visit.

and again the fact that in the end, the tigers got him speaks volumes towards the needed penalty. once the other programs knew they had wrongly made contact they bowed out. including washington. missouri kept going. imo, the tigers should be penalized every bit as hard as the huskies. but just like the other instances of pretty q claiming ignorance of the rules, you all are probably correct, nothing will happen. how long is pretty q allowed to "play dumb"? i guess he will continue to play that card until he is called on it.

[aj_arete]

or discrimination, let's be a little more responsible. When playing the elite card, make sure that when you making a comparison that they're actually similar.

Let's see, the NCAA found that Washington committed 13 MAJOR violations. With Mizzou, the NCAA found that they committed MINOR violations.

I think it's very telling that Washington's OWN INVESTIGATION led them to STOP recruiting the player in question, while THE NCAA found that it was OK for Mizzou to keep Conley. Does anyone think Conley would have been ruled eligible if the NCAA found that Mizzou committed ONE major violation??

I also think it's very telling that Mizzou was not alone in committing the MINOR violation with Conley. Does any reasonable person think that more than one ELITE program would risk major sanctions by KNOWINGLY illegally recruiting a player? This leads me to think that the rules interpretations were vague in this instance.

While I enjoyed Billiken Roy's role play of phone conversations between Conley and Mizzou, I think a more likely scenario involved Conley's mom contacting various schools inquiring about the likelihood of them being able to recruit their son. When she left a message with any of those programs, it's reasonable to assume that they would call her back. I'm sorry, but these accusations appear to be baseless...

[MUTGR]

I agree. If multiple teams violated the exact same rule with the exact same recruit, you don't just punish the team that ended up with the recruit, IMHO.

[billiken_roy]

i would like to hear your script aj of what a typical 5 minute phone call to the conley kid would have consisted of if mine is so unbelievable.

and if what the tigers did in this case is not considered major, then some major work to the definition of major and minor in the ncaa rule book needs to be done. stealing a player from an existing program before he is released should be a major violation.

[billiken_roy]

mu, i understand your thinking, but in all likelinhood, since missouri won, i would tend to believe that missouri pushed the button harder and more times than the programs that lost.

[MUTGR]

If, for example, Missouri broke the rule 10 times and the other schools broke it from 1 to 5 times, I can see Missouri getting a harsher penalty--but shouldn't the other schools also get some sort of sanction? I would think so.

[billiken_roy]

i agree with that thought completely mu.

[Taj79]

Not to defend Mizzou ... but COnley wanted to leave, yes? This wasn't some dumb kid walking down the campus who's cell phone goes off unexpectantly in his pocket with "Quin Calling" playing on the read our. Or "Tubby Calling." Or "Lute Calling." Or anyone else for that matter. I've got to believe that the kid and or the kid's mom made the initial calls. In today's sleaze of college recruitn, who wouldn't at least call back. I can't get into how many times or how long the duration .... that would only add to the speculation and I've railed on that long enough with the Conference scenarios.

I think the line of conversation between MU and broy might have some credence to it. If you penalize the winners, you would have to penalize the losers as well. The fact that MU and broy agreed made my mind wander to Arafat and Sharon. Peace can be achieved!

I applaud Romar for his loyalty to Dollar even though I think its going to cost him in the long run. I wouldn't be surprised to see Dollar disappear from the Huskie scene quietly, once all this has gone down in the public eye. Give him a year's severance pay where he can still live but shoosh him away from the Huskies.

I think Mizzou, through all this, has raised some red flags on its file down at NCAA HQ. If I were Quin, I'd be real careful that all my staff AND all my boosters, play it real close to the vest for a few years. A pattern is developing here and all it will take is one p*ssed off parent, kid or opponent and charges will come in. The history of late has not been good and the conviction could come in on the "where there's smoke there's fire" theory.

As for Conley ... leading the nation at VMI is one thing. Let's see how good he really is at a major conference school. Again ... show me.

[billiken_roy]

taj said, "If I were Quin, I'd be real careful that all my staff AND all my boosters, play it real close to the vest for a few years. A pattern is developing here and all it will take is one p*ssed off parent, kid or opponent and charges will come in. The history of late has not been good and the conviction could come in on the "where there's smoke there's fire" theory."

taj, if anyone in there right mind believed that pretty q's staff was acting on their own as dollar did at washington, your statement would have merit. but the fact that if you look at the indescretions and the many "minor" incidents that have piled up now during pretty q's reign, you will see everyone is in the act. i believe pretty q holds regular staff seminars on "walking in the gray areas". they are the best at it i have seen in quite awhile. i would classify snyder as a young eddie sutton when it comes to recruiting.