Few thoughts on MU’s most recent issue

Posted on: November 23, 2016 at 09:10:58 CT

Here we go again I guess. The irony of MU being in last place in both revenue sports and having key players lost due to not being able to remain academically eligible is certainly notable. I’m sure there is a decent amount of validity to what she is saying, and she will be drug through the mud in terms of her personal credibility.

The key relevant detail we don’t know is timeline, in that we don’t know at what point these alleged activities occurred. In my opinion the years in question will determine a great deal how MU approaches this and what the NCAA does.

Its reasonably safe to say that MU will likely throw men’s basketball under the bus if possible to protect the football program, particularly since that program is already on probation. Unless evidence comes out factually outlining how improprieties slant heavily in football’s favor I would expect men’s basketball to bear the brunt of the fallout. It would not surprise me to see us proactively go way overboard in imposing self penalties to try and shift blame and fallout away from football.

There is virtually no chance this is resolved by the end of the basketball season.

As I said following Kim’s curious decision to not resign at the end of last season, basically the only path for future long term retainment for him is to continue to make the job even less attractive and viable for suitable candidates. The worse shape the program is in and the more mitigating factors preventing a rebuild the more likely we just stay the course out of apathy. This just further cements that barring him stepping aside our basketball program isn’t going to be relevant for a long time and we likely aren’t going to be changing course. There are simply too many built in excuses against trying or treating the program seriously.

By next offseason we will likely have considerable self imposed violations, violated our probation and have serious NCAA restrictions, will have fallen below the acceptable APR levels and incur restrictions there, have established a new amazingly low attendance record, and there is a good chance we will have our third straight 14th place finish in the SEC and at best will be a non-entity in men’s basketball. Regardless of whatever penalties we dole out to ourselves or that the NCAA hands down or that we suffer due to our turnover and attrition, we have basically backed into a self imposed death penalty on the program by making a situation where making a suitable hire is likely not feasible.

Edited by FIJItiger at 09:12:20 on 11/23/16