Overall it appears Cuse got off with a pretty fair judgement. Yes they did escape an additional year of being banned but with what the NCAA actually could prove, I'm not sure they deserved one. You can pout about how they got to choose the year they took the ban, and that's a legit argument on the shadiness of Cuse, but I still don't see how that warrants an additional year.
The scholarship reduction may or may not hamper Cuse much, but I don't think it was an unfair amount either way. Cuse on average only has 11ish scholarship players and usually hand out 2-3 to "walk-ons" who do well in the classroom. With the reduction they will be forced to be very careful with recruitment, not just getting kids who can play right away but also kids who won't hurt the APR. That could be a tightrope for a program not named UK. The second big factor is how long JB stays around, he may not have Calhouns health issues but he's going to be 71 soon. Third, I agree this makes it more likely the AD feels pressure to make a splash when JB retires.
The three things I would have liked to see the NCAA do that I don't think they have yet:
1) retroactively change APR scores for kids where cheating was shown to have occurred (if warranted) and punish as appropriate.
2) Make it not only a scholarship reduction but also only allow 10 counters (close the loophole UConn used to get Drummond).
3) let any incoming freshman out of their LOI.
Cuse is in a pretty decent spot next year, but four years of scholarship reductions and recruiting penalties could be quite detrimental going forward.
Just for my own curiosity they have (if everyone returns):
Cooney (5th year SR)
Gbinge (5th year SR)
Coleman SR
Johnson JR
Patterson JR
Roberson JR
Okuboh JR
Joseph SO
McCullough SO
Franklin FR
Richardson FR
Lydon FR
Diagne FR
That puts them at 13 in 2015-2016 with three seniors. From what has been put out there it appears they can't add any other players unless they somehow get below 10.
If everyone comes back the following year, they have zero scholarships to offer and would lose their verbal (Moyer). There is a chance McCullough leaves but he's a big who is raw, gets knocked pretty often for not playing hard and just had surgery. Call me unconvinced right now. He's like a smaller Drummond but one coming off of surgery. Either way this could be the year they decide to boot some kids (pesky four year scholarships be damned).
). I've been watching SportsCenter for about an hour now. There have been two features the Hawks-Cavs game from last night, but the first mention of Boeheim (other than the BottomLine) was from Jay Bilas on College game day, just now.
