Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.

University of Pittsburgh head men’s basketball coach Jamie Dixon announced Wednesday that senior forward Mike Cook has been denied an additional year of competition from the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

In order to be considered for a sixth year extension, Cook would have needed to obtain a medical hardship waiver for his participation during the 2007-08 year. NCAA rules state that to be eligible for a medical hardship, a student-athlete must participate in no more than 30 percent of the team’s regular season games in order to guarantee an extra year of athletic eligibility. Even though Pitt played 37 total games including six postseason games, NCAA rules only allow postseason contests to be counted as one game when determining total number of games played. Since Cook played in 34 percent of Pitt’s games, Pitt filed an appeal with the NCAA to grant him an additional season of competition, as well as a sixth year after the hardship waiver was denied by the conference. The appeal was denied by the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Reinstatement Committee, comprised of faculty members and conference and athletic administrators.

One game. If it had been the 10th game when he got hurt — he’s getting another year. If it had been in game 12, not at all in dispute and there isn’t even an appeal. But right in the middle. Realistically Pitt played 37 games. For counting purposes a conference tournament and the NCAA Tournament get lumped as one single game. The numbers were uncomfortable.

In the end they fell back on, “a rule, is a rule, is a rule.” Why? Damned if I know. I do know whatever the letter of the rule, the spirit just got dumped on like John Edwards in a cancer survivors chatroom.

“Situations like this are hard to take when you know how dedicated Mike’s life has been to playing basketball,” Pitt Basketball Coach Jamie Dixon said. “Over the last three years, Mike has contributed significantly to our success both on and off the floor and has been an important member of our basketball family. When I asked Mike why he wanted to come to Pitt, he simply said he ‘wanted to win’. And he has won, going 40-8 as a starter. He has grown into a leader and has become an outstanding example for the younger players in our program. Mike has earned his degree and will have the opportunity to continue his career professionally when he returns to the floor.”

He did indeed. He left East Carolina where he was the man, but the rest of the team sucked. He had to do everything. He could have padded his stats and likely looked a lot better to NBA scouts. He came to Pitt and became part of a team. A family. He gave up a lot more chances to score. Embraced defense and — I hate this, it’s like a frickin’ eulogy.

I’m just really pissed about this.

Look, by all accounts Cook’s rehab is going a bit slower than expected. This was a brutal injury for a wing player. In all probability it will take him another 6 months — at least — before he can approximate where he was before the injury. He would have been a great presence and leader for the team, but his contributions would not have been as big. This wasn’t about how much better Pitt could have been with him. I think that was overstated.

It’s about the NCAA, once more, talking about how it is about the student-athlete. That it’s about the kids, and then falling back to hidebound rules when convenient and screw the kids.

One thing in the Pitt press release, though, did make me feel good.

Cook graduated from Pitt this spring with a communications degree and has spent the summer rehabbing his injury and preparing to action. The university will provide Cook an opportunity to remain in Pittsburgh as he takes additional classes and continues his rehabilitation.

That’s how you treat the student athletes.

Cook will at least have the time to really rehab. To really get better. All the while getting more education and prepared for the future. Even if in the short term, it’s just about basketball.

In an interview last month, Cook sounded ready to move on.

“As long as I can play basketball, that’s the most important thing to me,” he said. “If it’s not here, then I have to work for it to be somewhere else.”

Seriously? Again? What more info could they possibly need (Insider subs).

Pitt was supposed to hear this week from the NCAA about whether Mike Cook would receive a sixth season of eligibility. But the NCAA asked for more information, and Pitt has still not gotten a decision. Cook tore his ACL against Duke on Dec. 20.

I did check the date on Andy Katz’s blog post on this. It is for today, so it isn’t a rerun from info of last month. This is getting beyond stupid. The other problem with the continued delays is that it screws up the system if they do turn Cook down.

The NCAA system allows for appeals and requests for reconsideration. If the NCAA takes this long to make the first decision, there will be no practical chance to make an appeal and have a decision made before the school year starts. More than just making it very difficult for Pitt to set a roster, they are keeping Mike Cook’s life on hold with this. He’s in limbo with moving on to the rest of his life.

You have to be kidding.

The decision on Pitt guard Mike Cook’s medical redshirt may not come this week, as has been reported.

According to a source close to the situation, the decision by the NCAA may take another month, not nearly as soon as coach Jamie Dixon told reporters earlier this week.

Exactly what other information do they need? What other factors are under consideration?

This is a decision where you balance the letter of the rule — player can’t play more than 1/3 of the season — which he hit in the Duke game where he got injured to get a medical redshirt. The spirit/mercy of the rule — not taking away the chance to play and compete in collegiate athletics because of injuries.

Complicating things is that Cook would essentially be a 6th year senior since he used a redshirt when he transferred from ECU.

Still, all of this is known. This really should be about the NCAA just making the decision already.

In the matter of proving Sampson was “knowingly” violating NCAA recruiting rules.

Senderoff, who facilitated the three-way calls, said he didn’t remember reading an e-mail from an IU administrator June 13, 2006, stating the NCAA’s clarification that three-way calls were not allowed. Sampson acknowledged seeing the clarification but said he thought the subsequent three-way calls at issue were two-way calls.

In the case summary, the NCAA enforcement staff flatly challenges Sampson’s claim, citing several interviews with recruits.

Recruit DeJuan Blair, now a player at Pittsburgh, told an NCAA investigator he was “100 percent” sure he was on the phone with Sampson and Senderoff at the same time.

“If coach Sampson said something funny, coach Senderoff would laugh; or he would ask a question and coach Senderoff would answer; or coach Senderoff would ask a question and he would answer about Indiana,” Blair said.

The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle did a piece on football prospect Averin Collier and how much texting goes on in the recruiting process. Collier says during one recent month he received over 1000 text messages from coaches that want them at their schools. It’s pretty safe to assume Pitt is one of those schools and Dave Wannstedt is one of the coaches that sends him multiple messages per day.

“The recruiters ruined it because they overdid it,” he said. “It was a classic case of overkill, of trying to keep up with the Joneses. Syracuse sends you seven text messages in a day, so Pitt figures it has to send eight, and so on and so on. It just escalated to a point where it became ridiculous.”

He won’t need to worry once August 1 rolls around; at that point the NCAA’s ban on “electronically transmitted correspondence” goes into effect.

I’d also love to know how these coaches are sending these messages. Is it from a phone issued by the athletic department? Do they get a phone (probably more like a Blackberry) for texting? I wonder if I can get Wannstedt’s number and maybe we can chat about the season…

(Hat tip: David in Orlando)

Last week the NCAA Rules Committee approved moving the 3-point line back 1 foot starting in the 2008 season. The women’s line will remain at 19’9″, so there will be the unaesthetic sight of two arcs running parallel. That should confuse refs and players periodically. Another early observation was that the moving the line back, would be a hit to the mid-majors that rely more on shooters than players going inside.

The overall consensus in the media and most fans, though, has been overwhelmingly positive. Myself included. It shouldn’t be a shot where teams average over 33%. It should be a much tougher shot, and taken less frequently. Mike DeCourcy gives a good breakdown of what is hoped to be accomplished with it.

Empirical: Of every 10 shots taken in the 2006-07 season, 3.4 were launched from 3-point range, up from about 1.5 of every 10 in 1986-87, the first year of the 3-pointer. Over the past 11 seasons, 3-point accuracy improved from 34.1 percent to 35.0 percent.

Anecdotal: “You’ve got bad shooters taking it — you’ve also got bad shooters making it,” Notre Dame coach Mike Brey says.

Teams that set their perimeter players behind the 3-point line on offense will have to move them back. Teams that try to drop from the perimeter to double-team the ball in the post on defense will have more ground to cover. With less congestion in the key area, it likely will be easier for officials to identify the bumping, clutching and grabbing that defenders employ to disrupt offensive flow.

All this is expected to enhance the value of player movement, with and without the basketball. It’s a more beautiful game when the players are in motion.

When the local Pittsburgh college coaches were surveyed on the issue, it seems to reflect the view of major/mid-major biases. Coach Dixon was happy about it.

Pitt’s Jamie Dixon, whose Panthers rank among the nation’s elite programs, takes a different viewpoint than his counterparts at Duquesne and Robert Morris.

“I don’t think it will make too much of a difference,” Dixon said. “It was just a matter of time. We all knew this was coming. When I sent in my survey, I knew it [the line] was getting changed. I thought if they were going to move it, they should take it back to the international line.”

Mike Rice at Robert Morris isn’t a fan of moving it back; and Ron Everhart at Duquesne seems tepid at best. The one thing Dixon and Everhart did agree was that the lane should have been widened as well. Maybe they will take that up later.

There are always unintended consequences of a rule change. Syracuse and teams that play zone, look to be beneficiaries of the move.

One is how the move might encourage more teams to play a zone defense because if a zone is designed to force opponents to shoot 3-pointers, it’s reasonable to think more teams will become favorable of zones considering 3-pointers should now by definition be more difficult to make. Meanwhile, the schools that already predominantly play zone will likely enjoy a larger degree of success.

Advantage: Syracuse.

“Jim Boeheim, right now, is very happy,” UCLA coach Ben Howland told CBS SportsLine.com on Thursday afternoon. “In college basketball, you don’t have the same skill level as you do in the NBA, so you’re going to see a lot more zone.”

Things could really come together for the ‘Cuse in ’08 when you factor in that their ’07 recruiting class is huge in terms of ranking (top-5) and numbers (6 new players). They have a year to learn the zone and get comfortable with each other before the new rule. I’m just making note of that now.

DeCourcy also identified the type of players that will benefit from the move after next season: “The Bomber (Chris Lofton, Tennessee); Mid-range shooters (Jerel McNeal, Marquette); Aggressive wing players (Chris Douglas-Roberts, Memphis); Point guards who can run the fast break (Darren Collison, UCLA); and the Strong low-post players (Darrell Arthur, Kansas).

In the final group he includes DeJuan Blair as a player that will be dominating in the low-post, and will benefit from the change.

Good news for Pitt, the NCAA’s Academic Progress Reports have been released, and Pitt (PDF) is still in good shape.

For several years, we have been hearing and reading about how the APR would really start to improve for Pitt football once they started taking into account the post-Johnny Majors (the Walt Harris) years, and sure enough the multiyear APR for the football team it hit 948 this year. That’s well above the 925 minimum and apparently in the 70th-80th percentile among football programs.

In basketball, it was only 907, but because the sample size was too small (not enough players who were eligible to graduate) there are no penalties. Next year will be the big year as the 4th year will be included. Pitt does appear to be in good shape to meet the standards by that point.

UPDATE: I also did a general post for AOL. Not many BCS schools had scholarship losses in basketball and football. Arizona football lost 4 scholarships, Iowa State basketball 2 scholarships and Cincinnati basketball 1 scholarship.

Dennis took a tepid pro-texting ban, but I disagree. I understand the outright ban on texting, insofar as the whole concept of regulating and controlling it would be extremely difficult and tricky. Limiting it to certain times, only controls when received. Last I checked, you can put text messages in a draft folder and wait to send them. Still, the reaction by the NCAA seems to be an overreaction to new means of communication — simply banning them all.

The move comes a week after the NCAA’s management council recommended passage of the ban, which also eliminates communications through other electronic means such as video phones, video conferencing and message boards on social networking Web sites.

E-mails and faxes would still be permissible and subject to current NCAA guidelines, which include some time periods that prohibit coaches from contacting recruits in any form.

The ban on texting is going to be a double-edged sword for Pitt athletics. Specifically in football and basketball. The ban on texting, coupled with the limits on phone calls and other communications limits building a relation with players. What it does, is re-invite the middle men. Whether it be a friend of the targeted recruit or the HS (or prep or JUCO) coach.

While there is disagreement on this issue, one thing is clear: This new regulation is going to put the onus back on the high school coaches to become more involved in the recruiting process. Instead of texting a prospect to have them call them when they’re free, college coaches will now rely on the high school coaches to help them build the relationship with the prospects.

That can be both good and bad, but most college football assistants agree the bigger schools will have an advantage thanks to this ruling.

High school coaches might be more willing to help get a kid to call back if they’ve received a message from a national power like Notre Dame, Texas, USC or Florida. But what about the smaller schools or a school that’s trying to build a program?

This may be fine in Western Pennsylvania for football, with Coach Wannstedt and schmoozing the HS coaches in the area. It becomes an issue, though, in trying to recruit kids in other areas. It brings back the emphasis on bigger programs that are on TV plenty and the local programs in any geographic areas.

Even coaches in support of the ban agree with that.

“It would kind of push it back towards the teams that are on television the most. Those teams might benefit from it,” [GT Coach, Paul] Hewitt said.

“If you look at the whole timeline of recruiting, they used to say it’s about out-working people. They would call kids every day, then write letters to kids every day. Then about 1990, they said you could only call once a week and limited how many days you could go see kids and that kind of took away some of the parity.

“Now, with this whole text-messaging thing, kids are now having communication and open dialogue with more programs. Obviously the programs at the bottom trying to make their way up are probably text-messaging more than the guys that are at the top. In a funny way, I think the parity we see in college basketball is about the levels of communication we have with kids.”

That will make things interesting for Pitt basketball. Don’t expect Pitt to be on the Mouse Monopoly at the same level as this past season. Louisville and GT are the early leaders for most appearances based on early expectations. Syracuse and UConn will get their usual appearances. Pitt will be on TV, but they won’t be the lead dog.

What bothers me is the middle men. You know they will be there. And that means you need them for access. That also opens the door to all sorts of slimy dealings from those who can use the access to the recruits for their own benefit.

Finally, there’s the big loophole — e-mail and cell phones. Every major carrier now can let you tie an existing e-mail account to your cell phone to receive them. Essentially the same thing, only e-mail is treated like regular mail so it is unlimited. So much for solving the problem.

In that respect it’s like money and politics. The money is going to flow, no matter what barriers and blocks are put in the way.

Technology is shaping the world we live in and the recruiting world can be bundled in with that statement as well. The text messaging of recruits has really picked up some publicity within the last year or two and now the NCAA has banned coaches from texting their recruits.

Coaches are reacting in all different ways from “I think we should be allowed to do it any time we feel,” to “Only on weekends,” to “The ban is a good thing,” to “I don’t even know how to work the damn phone.”

According to Andy Katz, Jamie Dixon feels each text message sent should count as a recruiting call. There is a limit of one call per week to a recruit so in effect you would be allowed to send one text per week to a recruit. Not a bad idea, but since the limit of characters you can send in a single message is around 160 characters then it makes much more sense to call the potential player.

That may have not been a bad route for the NCAA to take. The coaches that want to freely text message their players would see that with a limit, it makes more sense to call and texting would happen much less without placing an official ban on it.

I don’t think free texting should be allowed. Some of these high school kids want to live their lives and being constantly bombarded is unnecessary. If you can’t have unlimited phone calls and visits, who should texting be a free for all? I think I might also get creeped out if I’m getting a message every 5 minutes from an old man (read: 72-year-old Arizona coach Lute Olson).

Remember when Pitt made a run for Luis Colon out of Miami? Instead his AAU coach steered him to his good buddy Bob Huggins. Guess, we know why. He fit the system there a little better.

Kansas State freshman basketball player Luis Colon received an automatic one-game suspension for throwing a punch Wednesday in a game against California in Berkeley, Calif.

The suspension is Big12-mandated. So Colon, who is 6-10, won’t play Saturday when the Wildcats play against Colorado State in Fort Collins, Colo. Colon was ejected with 6 minutes, 39 seconds left in K-State’s 78-48 loss. He threw the punch at Golden Bears’ 6-10 freshman Taylor Harrison.

“Luis actions last night are inexcusable and will not be tolerated,” K-State coach Bob Huggins said in a prepared statement. “This is a tough game, and you have to be mature and maintain your emotions. Luis understands that he made a mistake and there are consequences for his actions. This cannot happen again.”

If it does happen again, the Big 12 has him done for the season.

Huggy-bear made Colon go the Cal lockerroom after the game and apologize directly. K-State lost the game 74-48

I don’t think the Pitt coaches will be counting on it to happen, but hey, it’s worth a shot.

Redshirt Senior OL John Simonitis will be applying for a medical redshirt.

He is now looking into the prospects of getting a medical waiver with the hopes of gaining a sixth year of eligibility but, according to Simonitis, that appears to a be a long shot.

“I’m going to try but it is not looking good,” Simonitis admitted. “The coaches don’t think it’s possible. I think I will be all right without it, I have enough game film and I have been a four-year starter. A lot of my coaches are going to help me out, getting me into some (NFL) camps.”

According to the NCAA, a student athlete has five years to complete four seasons of competition. The school must apply to the conference office, in this case the Big East to receive a medical waiver. The criteria for receiving a medical waiver is an athlete must suffer a season-ending injury. The injury must occur during the first half of the season and the athlete can not have participated in more than two games or 20 percent of the games during a season.

In Simonitis’ case, he played in five games, although he participated in just two plays against Cincinnati and one play in the Toledo game.

“The coaches have to petition the NCAA and give good reasons why I should be able to get the (waiver),” Simonitis said. “I already was redshirted and I never had a season ending injury before. If I had a choice I would go back for a sixth year and get another year of experience. That would probably help me in the draft. Whatever happens, happens. The coaches don’t think it’s looking good, there are a lot of circumstances and I think I have probably played too many games.”

As for his future, only time will tell. It all depends on how smoothly the rehab goes. Simonitis is still intent on getting to an NFL camp whether it be in 2007 or the following year. The Dolphins and Raiders are two teams that have visited the Pitt campus and relayed to the coaching staff that they liked what they saw in Simonitis. At 6-foot-5, 315 pounds, he has the size and footwork to make it in the NFL.

Even though his other redshirt was non-medical, the fact that he has already redshirted probably weighs heavier against him then playing in 5 games this year.

Man I hate it when the Graduation Success Rates come out. It’s such stale data.

The NCAA released graduation rates for Division I athletes yesterday, and Pitt’s rates improved, which continues a trend that began last year.

The report released yesterday is different from the federal graduation rate, called the Academic Progress Rate. The NCAA releases the graduation success rate or GSR, which, unlike the federal graduation rate, does not penalize schools for players who transfer from an institution in good academic standing.

The report does not reflect the current progress of student-athletes at the institutions. The report released yesterday instead reflects rates from 1996-99.

Pitt’s GSR for all sports is 77 percent, up from 74 percent a year ago. The football and basketball team improved greatly from the rates of a year ago. The football team increased from 48 percent to 54 percent, and the basketball team jumped from 29 percent to 57 percent.

…

To put the report into perspective, roughly half the Pitt football players represented in the report were recruited by Johnny Majors. The others were recruited by Walt Harris. For basketball, more than three quarters of the players were recruited by Ralph Willard, the rest by Ben Howland.

Long pointed out that the one-year graduation rate for the 1999 basketball class is 100 percent. The one-year rate for the football team is 67 percent.

Two head coaches later in football and basketball and we are still dealing with that dreadful period of Pitt athletics.

Several little things to pass on and clear off the browser tabs.

Brian Walsh a Moon Junior and player on the AAU Pittsburgh J.O.T.S.  had a very good AAU summer tournament season. Before, it was expected that he might be a MAC/A-10 level recruit. It has led to more offers than initially expected. This now includes Pitt.

Walsh, a 6-4 1/2 guard, met with Pitt coach Jamie Dixon Wednesday and was offered a scholarship. In the past month-and-a-half, he also received scholarship offers from Duquesne, Memphis, Xavier, Penn State and Maryland is very interested.

Walsh opened college coaches’ eyes with his performance at the Reebok ABCD camp this summer in New Jersey.

“When I came back from a few camps, I just started getting calls,” Walsh said. “I was kind of blown away by the Pitt offer. They’re going to be one of the top five teams in the country this year. For coach Dixon to think I can play at that level, is really something.”

South Carolina is out as Pitt’s opponent at MSG on December 21. Alabama might be in if they can move another game (Insider subs.).

South Carolina abruptly pulled out of a Dec. 21 game against Pittsburgh in the Aeropostale Classic at Madison Square Garden. The Pitt-South Carolina game was supposed to be the undercard of the headline game of Gonzaga-Duke. Well, according to multiple sources, South Carolina withdrew from the game because the Gamecocks weren’t getting any kind of financial guarantee. South Carolina picked up a home game against Baylor in place of Pitt. Now MSG is scrambling to find a replacement for the Panthers. Alabama is trying to get NC State to move a date so the Tide can take South Carolina’s place. Virginia Tech was interested, but couldn’t move a game. MSG is sending out feelers to loads of teams. Pitt is still committed to the game, but is getting nervous about an open date. The Duke-Gonzaga game is on ESPN, while the Pitt game would be on ESPNU. Alabama needs another home game, but is willing to go to New York.

You get to play at MSG. You get national exposure. You get to play a pre-season top-10 (and in some cases -5) team on a neutral court. And the concern is over a financial guarantee? Riiiiggghhhtt.

Andy Katz also has the news on a nasty bit of legislation that is pissing off the membership of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC).

Beginning Aug. 1, a school’s director of basketball operations (99 percent of the time a man, but there have been cases of a woman or two people holding the spot) will no longer be allowed to recruit. That means the person can’t write letters, make a call, pick up a player, nada, nothing, zilch.

“We were very opposed to this in the Big 12,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said Wednesday. “In the past, we’ve utilized the DOB with letter writing and that’s how you worked your way up. Usually, the DOB takes a second or third list and recruits off of that list.” The membership’s complaint is that if there were preexisting relationships with high school or AAU coaches, then how will the compliance staff be able to police whether the DOB is actually recruiting or just having a conversation with someone he knows?

Pitt will be in an interesting position since its new DOB, David Cox, has a lot of preexisting relationships with many players Pitt is now recruiting. Pitt is going to be very careful not to get tripped up by something like this.

While on the subject of dumb NCAA rulemaking, how about the re-institution of some dumb practice rules.

A lot of schools operating on the semester system begin classes in the next week or two, which means basketball players will be returning to campus. They’ll be allowed to head for the gym to work with their coaches. But heaven help them if the entire starting five winds up on the floor at once.

That would be a violation of NCAA bylaw 17.1.5.2.2.

This new rule declares Division I players starting school before September 15 can take part in their customary two hours per week of supervised skill work but says only four of them can be in the gym at any one time. After September 15, programs operate full-squad workouts.

A year ago there were no such restrictions. Skill workouts started when classes started, they ended when classes ended, and coaches could have as many players as they wanted in a session. That was the first year for this approach, which pleased college coaches, who had been stuck with the four-at-once limit since offseason workouts had been approved a decade earlier. Most hope one day to have year-round access to train their players, a scenario that would bring the United States in line with what young players around the world are allowed.

Why go back? Because schools that operate on the Quarter system — especially those in the PAC 10 — whined long and loud how unfair this was to them since they started later than September 15.

“The problem is, we had it right,” says Dayton coach Brian Gregory. “And we had an opportunity over the next year or two to show the NCAA we wouldn’t abuse that. And then you could go back in a year or two and say, ‘This really should be extended to year-round.’ ”

It’s only a few weeks we’re talking about here. It’s not a life-changing inconvenience. The NCAA was moving forward — slowly forward — on the issue of allowing coaches to make their players better. This should be among the foremost issues for college basketball coaches because it’s an essential part of improving the game in this country. It certainly should be of greater importance than petty, baseless, selfish concerns.

You expect coaches to risk any perceived disadvantage in the short-term? No matter how questionable?

As the NCAA continues its crackdown on the vital issues, it does so in its usual coherent, logical and reasonable manner. Especially if you aren’t a D-1 BCS school.

The NCAA has denied William & Mary’s appeal of a ruling that prohibits it from using its logo showing two Indian feathers at NCAA championship events or from hosting NCAA Tournament games where the logo would be displayed.

The news came Thursday in a letter from the NCAA Executive Committee, affirming a May decision that the green and gold logo is hostile or offensive to American Indians.

In that same ruling, the NCAA said William & Mary’s nickname, the Tribe, was not necessarily abusive, hostile or offensive, and therefore still could be used.

Oooo-kaaayyyy. This is the offending logo (at least most of it).

Yeah, that’s one to piss off people.

A little while back, in one of the blogpoll roundtables I averred that Oklahoma should be considered quite overrated. Now, I feel more confident in that prediction with this news.

Oklahoma starting quarterback Rhett Bomar will not play for the Sooners this season following an investigation by the team, according to a television report.

Oklahoma confirmed that two players had been dismissed by the team but did not identify them. The school said in a statement that the players violated NCAA rules by working at a private business and taking “payment over an extended period of time in excess of time actually worked.”

Oklahoma City television station KWTV reported that Bomar, who set an Oklahoma freshman record with 2,018 passing yards after taking over as the Sooners’ starter in the second game last season, was one of the two players who had been permanently dismissed.

“We spend a considerable amount of time addressing our players regarding their personal conduct and the NCAA rules,” head coach Bob Stoops said in a statement. “They know exactly what we expect from them. Ultimately, they have to make right decisions. The same holds true for our boosters. When they do not, the consequences are serious, and we will not tolerate this behavior.

“Our team and university actions are necessary because of the intentional participation and knowledge of the student athletes in these violations,” Stoops said.

Gee, who’d a thunk that Oklahoma would display higher standards than Ohio State in the new century?