NCAA President Explains Kanter Decision, Denies Ill Will Towards UK

NCAA President Explains Kanter Decision, Denies Ill Will Towards UK

Posted: Jan 10, 2011 3:47 PM

NCAA president Mark Emmert is amazed by the public reaction to the decision by the NCAA to permanently suspend Enes Kanter.

In an interview with Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports, Emmert defended the decision and dispelled claims that it was based at all on any ill will towards Kentucky or John Calipari.

"The facts are utterly unambiguous, the rule is utterly unambiguous, and the intention of the membership is utterly unambiguous," Emmert said. "The vast majority of people in collegiate basketball knew that this was an issue with Enes Kanter. Kentucky knew it. Everybody who talked with him knew it. So I'm amazed that people are shocked by the fact that he is ineligible."

Several national college basketball journalists as well as many True Blue Fans have questioned whether the decision had anything to do with the NCAA's unique animosity towards Kentucky.

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's ridiculous," Emmert said of claims made most recently by ESPN's Dick Vitale that Kanter would face a lighter penalty if he played somewhere besides Kentucky.

"By all accounts this is a very talented basketball player, but yet there were very few schools recruiting him. Why was that? Because everyone understood that there was a very large probability that he was not going to be deemed eligible. This has nothing to do with Kentucky or Coach Calipari. It has to do with a clear rule and a clear set of facts."

The main criticism of the NCAA has been its lack of consistency when doling out penalties. Kansas guard Josh Selby was found to have taken impermissible benefits but is back on the court after he paid back the money and served a brief suspension. A number of Ohio State football players penalized by the NCAA were still allowed to play in their team's bowl game. And then there's the case of Auburn quarterback Cam Newton, who was not penalized by the NCAA despite his father being caught trying to arrange a pay-for-play deal with Mississippi State.

"They are all very different cases with very different facts," Emmert told Davis. "You mentioned Selby. Here was an individual who took somewhere over $5,000 worth of impermissible benefits. It wasn't from a professional team. It was from a third party. That wasn't a violation of our rules regarding professional athletics."

Emmert was the president of The University of Washington when Kanter committed to play there. He later backed out of the commitment and signed with Kentucky. Emmert told Davis that he did not monitor recruiting while he was the university's president and did not know the details surrounding Kanter's recruitment and subsequent decommitment.

Siting his own sources, Davis says that Washington originally recruited Kanter with the belief that he would have to miss some time but would retain his eligibility. As they learned more information on Kanter, the coaches realized it was unlikely he would ever become eligible and the two sides began to distance themselves. According to Davis, Kanter never visited Washington, applied for admission or contacted coach Lorenzo Romar to officially decommit.

"The two just quietly went their separate ways," Davis writes.

Uh.....yeah.....right........I believe that.