As a public service, CBS SportsLine.com has researched the variety of ways college basketball players have compromised their eligibility this season.
Ten for Tuesday offers the following as a crash course for any college coach looking to inform his players how to stay on the straight and narrow.
And as for you players ... it's not all that narrow.
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| Kentucky's Randolph Morris hasn't been ruled ineligible, but his pre-draft actions were questionable. (Getty Images) |
2. Pops Mensah-Bonsu, George Washington: Like Morris, Mensah-Bonsu didn't take proper care during his dalliance with the 2005 NBA Draft, and the NCAA nailed him with a three-game suspension. However, Mensah-Bonsu apparently crossed the line just a little bit -- three games is not a big deal -- whereas the NCAA feels Morris drove full speed over that line ... in a Lexus, perhaps.
3. Darnell Jackson, Kansas: He's missing the season's first nine games after the NCAA determined Jackson had received roughly $5,000 in extra benefits from a Kansas booster. Jackson, a sophomore forward who might start, and the booster insist their relationship is blameless. Maybe so, but the NCAA can't afford to let boosters and recruits hook up for $5,000 in goods and services. Those are floodgates college basketball doesn't need opened.
4. Patrick O'Bryant, Bradley: The headlines are worse than the story. O'Bryant received money for work he didn't do! Well, technically, yes. The reality is, O'Bryant's summer employer put him on salary because he felt it was easier than keeping an hourly time sheet. When O'Bryant was determined to have earned an excessive amount, bingo: extra benefit. He's missing the first eight games, meaning the 7-foot center will return in time for the Braves' Missouri Valley opener Dec. 28 against Northern Iowa. O'Bryant was guilty of trusting his employer too much, and not alerting school officials to his inflated paycheck -- assuming he knew the paycheck was inflated in the first place. Nowadays, with the NCAA looking, a player can't afford such nonchalance.
5. Ricky Hickman, UNC-Greensboro: Hickman got ensnared in the same rule that cost North Carolina's Raymond Felton the 2004-05 season-opener: playing in a summer league unsanctioned by the NCAA. Because leagues get sanctioned on an annual basis, players can't assume a summer league is OK based on previous years. Hickman, a senior guard who averaged 14.5 ppg last season, missed the first two games.
6. Chadd Moore, Cincinnati: While Hickman was tripped up by a garden variety NCAA rule on summer leagues, Moore stumbled over a more exotic interpretation. Moore, a senior guard who has been plagued by a bad back, quit the team for good last year -- or so he thought. After playing in a 2005 summer league, he felt so good that he decided to return this season. Not so fast. While the summer league was sanctioned -- he played alongside several UC teammates -- Moore hadn't sought the proper medical waiver from last year's medical hardship. Or something like that. Moore is missing the first five games, by which time I hope to understand the rationale behind his suspension.
7. Jamar Butler, Ohio State: Another variation on unsanctioned competition knocked Butler -- Ohio State's starting point guard -- and teammate Matt Terwilliger out of the Buckeyes' season opener. They were found to have played in a charity three-on-three event at a YMCA, which the NCAA ruled a violation of the rule that limits a player's organized competition opportunities in the offseason. Splitting hairs? Sure. But a college athlete can't afford to make such a blasé assumption -- "surely this event is OK" -- when all it takes is a single question to the school compliance department.
8. Jawann McClellan, Arizona: McClellan had a sympathetic case -- he wasn't able to get eligible this summer while mourning the sudden death of his father -- but the NCAA took a hard-line approach in suspending him for the first semester. He technically wasn't eligible because of his academic shortcomings throughout the 2004-05 school year. Summer school was just going to be his final attempt to straighten up. Tragically, his father's death came first. For future reference, players, the bottom line is this: Take care of business during the school year. Summer school can't always be a safety net.
9. Abdul Herrera, Cincinnati: This one's a head-scratcher. Herrera, a native of Panama, took the same English as a Second Language curriculum that other future NCAA athletes have taken in South Florida. The NCAA approved his ESL II and ESL III classes from South Miami High -- but not his ESL I course. And so Herrera is sitting out his freshman season as a partial qualifier. The lesson for future international student-athletes from is to ... um ... speak better English?
10. Kennedy Winston, Alabama: This guy did the most dangerous thing imaginable: He trusted an agent more than his college coach. Alabama's Mark Gottfried told Winston he was no lock to be taken in the first round of the 2005 NBA Draft, but Winston not only stayed in the draft -- he hired an agent seven weeks before the draft. Winston went undrafted, but he was stuck as a professional. It's a pathetic sight, Winston sitting behind the Alabama bench this season.
