NCAA's crusade against prep schools should include due process

I have no way of knowing what the NCAA is up to next week. I couldn't begin to guess. They didn't return a call. But if our friends in Indianapolis aren't too busy and are looking for a way to spend a few days, I have a suggestion. They should just follow these steps.

Step 1: Go to Expedia.com.
Step 2: Find a flight from Indianapolis to Charlotte.
Step 3. Book that flight.
Step 4: Board that flight.
Step 5: Land in Charlotte.
Step 6: Exit the plane.
Step 7: Go to baggage claim.
Step 8: Look for Colin Stevens.

"They don't even have to get a rental car; I'll meet them in Charlotte, pick them up and drive them back to our campus," said Stevens, headmaster of the Patterson School, located about 80 miles north of Charlotte. "I welcome them. I want them to come and visit us. We have nothing to hide."

Colin Stevens (Provided to SportsLine)

If Stevens sounds frustrated, that's because he is. The Englishman has been in education for 33 years, even spending some time representing the British government in the Caribbean and Canada. Now, he's running Patterson, an institution that happens to have a top-tier prep basketball program, which these days is akin to being a muscle-head slugging home runs at an astonishing rate. Even if everything is on the level, people can't help but be suspicious.

So when the NCAA released, in July, a list of 22 prep schools it planned to further review as part of its well-documented crackdown on "diploma mills," it was no surprise that Patterson was on it. Stevens wasn't even that upset. He figured it just went with the territory, was merely the cost of having elite players, and that the NCAA would send a representative some time soon, check things out and subsequently remove his school from this list.

Then came August.

Now it's September.

The NCAA is yet to visit.

So the label remains.

And it's costly.

Sure, Patterson will still field a nice team this season. It has Tennessee pledge Cameron Tatum, Seton Hall pledge Jeremy Hazell and Rutgers pledge Earl Pettis, plus one of the top juniors (James Tyler) and sophomores (Karron Johnson) in the nation.

But, according to coach Chris Chaney, things could have been better. Patterson was close to landing Rivals.com's No. 1 player in the Class of 2007 (Michael Beasley) and No. 14 player in the Class of 2008 (Devin Ebanks). However, with the NCAA's list essentially warning that attending Patterson could leave prospects in a situation where their core work won't be recognized next fall, each prospect opted to enroll elsewhere.

"That's two McDonald's All-Americans, probably two pros," Chaney said. "We're still going to be fine. But we won't have the team we could've had."