Count on Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News to know about all of this.
The Panthers played 27 regular-season games–nine non-conference, 18 in the Big East season. They competed in the Big East tournament, which counted as one game because any team could be eliminated the first day. They played four early games in the Hispanic College Fund Basketball Challenge, which counted as two under NCAA rules for multi-team events. The Panthers’ NCAA Tournament appearances does not factor in; postseason doesn’t count because there’s no expectation a team will make it. So as permitted by the organization’s rules, Pitt’s schedule officially consisted of 30 games last season.
If you count Cook as having played 11 games, he is not eligible for the waiver. Indeed, he took the court 11 times. There’s no disputing that. He played a full complement of minutes in every one of those games.
However, it seems curious for the rules to be different for a team and a player in terms of how the games are calculated. If those four games in the Hispanic College Fund tournament counted only as two on Cook’s record–as they did for Pitt to meet NCAA scheduling rules–he officially would have played nine games last season. He’d be at exactly 30 percent and eligible for the waiver.
That case was made to the reinstatement committee nearly two months ago. Its members apparently thought hard about this, because they did not issue an answer for quite a while. But they still said no.
“They say, ‘There may be merit to your case, but we can’t do anything about it,’ ” Dixon said.
The university was told it could attempt to change the rule through the NCAA’s legislative process.
Of course, by the time a new rule could be adopted, Mike Cook’s grandkids would be D-I prospects.
If the committee had wanted to be just, it could have essentially rewritten the rule by issuing a precedent-setting decision. Instead, the committee chose expedience.
Got that?
Two different calculations, one screw over.
Cook had never taken a redshirt — medical or otherwise. He sat out one year under NCAA rules for transfers — he was not eligible to play. While getting a 6th year is rare, it would only have been a 5th year of actual eligibility. That’s one of the key differentials between the Ben Mauk case at Cinci and Mike Cook’s.
I think at the heart of the issue is that in the Hispanic College Fund Tourney, all 4 games counted because you can’t be eliminated from that tourney. It’s is a round robin, not a lose and done. It seems the rule is written as such that only tourneys where you can be eliminated count as 1 game, not round robins.
I am not supporting that ruling, I just saying that I understand how they came to the conclusion they did. I commend Jamie for going way out on a limb for Mike and pushing it as hard as he did.
Chas, good point on the 5th versus 6th year of eligibility. I am not sure how the transfer rule affected their decision, probably not at all then, but you are right in saying it would only been his 5th year of actually being allowed to play.
The NCAA didn’t miscalculate. They just have two different ways to calculate. One for the number of games a school plays and one for the number of games a player plays. The rules themselves are inconsistent. The appeals board had a chance to recognize the inconsistency and do something about it in this case.
Instead they just threw up their hands and said that while they could grant the appeal and the point on the inconsistency is valid, they would stick with the inconsistency and say no.
As for why they reduce the number in these tourneys — round robin or lose and out — is that they are considered “exempt” games. Games that don’t count in full towards the maximum amount of games a team can play in a year. Which is also why exempt tournaments have proliferated — so teams can get around the max limit.
