Harsh words from someone who says very little and does even less.

"We are not the cops on the corner," Brand said. "The schools themselves have the responsibility to follow the rules and that means, and includes, separating agents from interfering with student-athletes."

I think that is a fair statement. But it’s a little too late. The schools need to find a way to ensure tighter control on these sorts of activities. One problem here is that the NCAA could have negotiated better with the NBA when David Stern set up his one-year mandatory rule. Brand could have and should have asked for in return that the NBA protect the NCAA’s players by enacting stiff penalties in regards to tampering with players. Requiring agents and their firms to register with the different leagues and then setting up guidelines in which they can operate is a start. Both leagues need each other but while the NBA uses the NCAA as its “D” league the NCAA is left to pick up the pieces when these sorts of issues come up. Law enforcement need to do their part as well, if there are laws on the books that are supposed to protect the schools and their players why not enforce them? A criminal record goes a long way to establishing a pattern of behavior.

You can tell by Brand’s tone that he is getting ready to tee off on USC’s basketball program. The Bush issue is stalled and they may never find out all the details not to mention that there is pretty clear evidence that SC didn’t know. Couple that with the egg on the NCAA’s face that they, like USC, didn’t find out about Mayo before in their original eligibility checks, throw in a dash of USC stupidity for letting a scumbag like Guillory anywhere near the basketball program with his past and you can see where he is lining us up in his sites…

But will he really do it?

It’s obvious that Brand is more agitated because this was aired out in public on ESPN so he has no choice but to respond in this way. Not doing so further damages his organizations already dwindling credibility. There will be no death penalty because there is no consistent history of consistent transgressions at USC that would fall under NCAA guidelines; more on that in another post. They could have nailed Michigan back in the 90’s but they didn’t, though you could say that what punishment Michigan did receive was enough to make their basketball program look a like a nuclear winter and that is probably worse than the death penalty. Dave over at Maize n’ Brew has a great take on this that was noted in the Fanposts earlier in the week.

I will continue to drive this point home as long as this issue is unresolved. USC deservers whatever punishment it receives for one simple reason, Guillory had a past that directly involved USC and they chose to ignore it. They danced with the devil and now they going to pay the price. I have less of a problem about the Mayo mess if they were caught totally off guard but Guillory burned them before and Floyd and those within Heritage Hall let have the run of the place. Ignorance in this case is not a justifiable defense. The Bush and Mayo situations are separate for the obvious reasons we have discussed before. Where SC may have had a leg to stand on in the past about not knowing they lose that benefit because they were either too stupid t know what was going on or they knew and rolled the dice hoping they could get away with it.

Plaschke notes today  that USC needs to say something about this regardless of what USC’s attorneys say. I say don’t bother I know all I need to know in regards to Mayo, there is nothing you can say that will justify letting Guillory have his run of the place or make this go away.