No matter what the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions decrees, Arizona's basketball program has already been gutted and impaired by its own hand. Do you recall how painful the last three seasons were?
The principals in the case - the guilty, the sorta-guilty, the innocent and those who can't remember much - are no longer on the payroll.
Gone: Lute Olson, Miles Simon, Josh Pastner, Matt Brase, Jim Rosborough and some assorted minor characters.
Gone: Athletic director Jim Livengood, under whose watch this classic "lack of institutional control" took place.
Gone: Former Goazcats.com publisher Jim Storey, who was asked to disassociate himself from the athletic department immediately, if not sooner.
Gone: Brandon Jennings, recruited via the Cactus Classic, a flesh-peddling circus that ran amok from 2006-08 under the ill-fitting name of amateur athletics. Jennings' allegiance to UA was so slight he never even enrolled, electing to play for a year in Italy before attaining the NBA job he viewed as his birthright.
People are also reading…
The place has been scrubbed clean and fumigated. There is no longer anyone on the UA basketball staff or in the athletic department who can (or should) be held accountable.
I would recommend for an immediate medal of institutional valor Bill Morgan, the school's director of athletic compliance. It was Morgan who, at the risk to his employment, took on Olson, pursued the truth, persevered, and by his diligence saved the UA basketball program a lengthy and expensive punishment.
Nobody is likely to do any hard time for fracturing NCAA rules, but it would be nice if Olson stepped forward and said "I lost control. Please forgive me."
That's about as likely as me spending the summer in Katmandu.
The dissolution of a once-great basketball family took place for the simplest reasons: greed and the hunger for more.
When Olson essentially gave his name and reputation to Storey, Arizona was recruiting at the highest level of college basketball. Duke and North Carolina and UCLA didn't do any better. That's why, when Olson made a brief return in the spring and summer of 2008, he talked excitedly about another Final Four.
His projected lineup for 2008-09 was Brandon Jennings, Jordan Hill, Chase Budinger, Jerryd Bayless and who cares if they even had a fifth player?
It was during this period that Olson gave unprecedented access to Storey, who, although not on payroll, became one of the most important variables in the entire UA empire. Storey had access to the AAU all-stars and their coaches. He hustled, got them to campus once or twice a year in showcase settings, which gave Arizona a recruiting advantage that had never existed in this small corner of the country.
Olson, Pastner and Simon enabled Storey to feel important and to be part of something Really Big. Who can blame Storey for biting off as much as he could get? He became best friends with Simon and had almost immediate access to every conceivable piece of news in the basketball program.
Of all people, the publisher of a relatively new Tucson-based Web site became the mouthpiece of one of America's 10 leading basketball programs.
That was the cue for Livengood to step in and monitor the alliance. It was a cue he either missed or ignored.
Over time, boosters contributed $197,000 to Storey's Cactus Classic tournaments. He was welcome at their company. Given such opportunities, one doesn't suppose Storey sat around thinking of ways to lose money.
Storey began in a hybrid Internet position as a dot-com recruiting guy who could exchange news between prep All-Americans and coaching staffs prohibited from speaking to the teenagers. Now every BCS school has a similar conduit to the high schoolers and their coaches. It's against the rules but, hey, everybody does it.
The remaining unknown is whether the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions will agree with Arizona's self-punishment or add to it.
In November 2008, as she completed her term on the Committee on Infractions, Nebraska law professor Josephine Potuto asked for more aggressive punishment of known cheaters in college athletics.
"Increasingly, there are people on campuses saying 'There's no teeth here.' Did they lose scholarships? Were they taken out of the postseason? Were wins vacated?" Potuto told reporters. "The committee feels that the penalties really have gotten out of synch with the magnitude of violations."
Three months later, the University of New Mexico football program expressed displeasure when the Committee on Infractions added to the Lobos' self-imposed penalties. It abolished 15 scholarships over three years. The Lobos had proposed three. Potuto's plea had been successful.
But New Mexico admitted to academic fraud, which is considered much more egregious than Olson's recruiting transgressions.
The UA lost control because Storey took on a bigger role than just dispensing recruiting minutia. As a result, it will now cost Sean Miller at least a scholarship and some recruiting time. If it doesn't go beyond that, it's a relatively small price to pay.
The scar on Olson's legacy is the bill with the biggest numbers.
Chronicle the last quarter-
century of Southern Arizona sports with a compilation of the Star sports columnist's work.
"Hustling to beat deadline"
Purchase the book and get it signed
• Thursday - Noon to 1 p.m. at Desert Hills Golf Club, Green Valley
Cost: $24.99 plus tax
Buy it in person: Arizona Daily Star, 4850 S. Park Ave.
Buy it online: tucson.com/store
