If USC cheated, does that mean John Wooden did too? (Bilas, ESPiN)

Bumped...can you hear the screaming from across town yet! P

Excerpts and paraphrasing from "Jay Bilas Blog:  NCAA Standards?  Anyone know what those are?"  Jay Bilas is a graduate of Duke Law School and practices law at Moore & Van Allen in Charlotte, N.C.

Excellent article from Jay calling out the NCAA and Paul Dee for their incompetence and hypocrisy.

In the wake of the NCAA's questionable decision and resulting punishment in the case of USC's football program.....the issue for all of us to consider right now is which programs and coaches we are willing to call cheaters, why, and by what standard.  If we are willing to call USC a cheater based upon certain evidence, are we therefore required to call U¢LA a cheater?

Jay is a trained lawyer and has read all of the available documents.  He, too, sounded incredulous that the NCAA could base their key evidence on the words of a convicted felon and former gang member who has served prison time and has never held a legitimate job - a witness with no credibility.  

According to USC, the allegations made by the NCAA are weak and, on some issues, can be disproved. After reading the notice and response, it is hard to argue that point.......The idea that the word of a convicted felon, not subject to cross-examination and without corroboration, could convict USC offends any notion of fair play.  

Jay goes on to note that Tim Floyd was cleared of allegations by the NCAA report.  To date, there has been no apology or retraction from Yahoo Sports! for their libelous character defamation of Coach Floyd.

....using as a backdrop this lame standard of proof and such paucity of credible evidence and corroboration to find an institutional link and convict USC football, consider also that Tim Floyd was not found guilty of anything in the NCAA's findings regarding the allegations surrounding O.J. Mayo. Not a single thing. That means the evidence that the NCAA had against Floyd was so flimsy as to be nonexistent. After all of that hand-wringing, finger-waving and high-horse posturing, Floyd was basically declared innocent of the charges brought against him by the NCAA.

So, why can't 98% of Hater Nation see that USC has been railroaded by the media and the NCAA.  Why do they insist on referring to Pete Carroll as a cheater?  Jay illustrates the inanity of these accusations....

Despite the clear problems with the NCAA's standards and the case against the Trojans, many would say, Good riddance, USC; you got what you deserved. Despite the lack of credible evidence, many would consider USC's coaching staff to be guilty and complicit in any wrongdoing because the head coach and coaching staff are always responsible for everything that goes on in the program. Always.   

Well, if that goes for Pete Carroll.....if you are among those that feel that way, you just called John Wooden a cheater.

The NCAA's new "moving the goal post" standards hereby deem every head coach whose program, even if only a single player, has had a run-in with the NCAA a cheater.  But, seriously, should Wooden be described as a cheater too???

Several of Wooden's players on his championship teams have admitted taking extra benefits from Sam Gilbert, an established representative of UCLA's athletic interests during most of Wooden's championship years, and have admitted knowing that such actions were illegal. In addition, Wooden himself is on record saying that he suspected that Gilbert might have been doing illegal things, and that Wooden may have been guilty of "trusting too much."  Can you imagine the reaction if Carroll.......put forth the defense that they were guilty only of "trusting too much"?

So, Pete Carroll and John Wooden shared similar experiences, but with different PR treatment?

.....if you accept the insubstantial evidence against USC football, it follows that you must also accept the mass of evidence against U¢LA basketball. And if you label USC a cheater based on the evidence presented, you would seem required also to label U¢LA a cheater. And by the standard that every head coach is responsible for what goes on in his program, you would also seem required to call John Wooden a cheater.

Jay is not willing to call John Wooden a cheater.  He is merely using that example to highlight the absurdity of the NCAA's torpedo attack against the USC battle ship.  As for the NCAA, Jay smells a rat:

Oh, and while we are discussing standards, does it strike anyone as peculiar that the chair of the Committee on Infractions that slammed USC is Paul Dee, the former athletic director at Miami? Dee was in charge of the Miami program when the Hurricanes' football team was hit with some of the most severe sanctions in NCAA history. Why is Dee, who presided over a cheating and scandalous program by NCAA standards, allowed to chair the Committee on Infractions, which sits in judgment of other programs?   Please, tell me more about the NCAA's "standards".