A long shot at an appeal is better than doing nothing

When you are behind on the scoreboard, time on the clock is waning and a half-court shot is the only one left, you square up and take it.

Which is pretty much where the University of Hawaii finds itself today with the NCAA.

Wednesday is the deadline by which UH must file a notice of intent if it plans to appeal last month’s sanctions against its men’s basketball team, which means it is time to let it fly.

Few people briefed on UH’s case think the Rainbow Warriors have much more than a snowball’s chance in Kaimuki of dissuading the NCAA from implementing the most heavy-handed of the sanctions, a postseason ban for the 2016-17 season.

But we all know the decision at this point, after much deliberation (which reportedly continued in meetings Monday), is really no decision at all: A long shot is still better than no shot.

The worst-case scenario is that the postseason ban remains and the door is held open for the cream of what would be next year’s senior class, Aaron Valdes, Stefan Jankovic, Mike Thomas and Stefan Jovanovic, to exit en masse with the NCAA’s blessing.

UH could still lose Valdes and Jankovic, if they graduate this summer and opt to transfer a la Keith Shamburger.

But failing to press an appeal virtually assures a scorched 2016-17 season and beyond. Not a pleasant thought.

The UH administration needs to be seen as proactive in this case. Both by the players it would hope to retain and the fans it is counting on holding onto.

How would it be perceived in the locker room and the wider community, not to mention among potential recruits, if the school chooses to lay down and not mount a defense of the program?

Yes, it means adding to the $275-an-hour stack of moolah it has been paying the partners at its Alabama-based law firm, Lightfoot, Franklin & White. And it likely means another couple of months of kowtowing to the NCAA until the Infractions Appeals Committee, the arbiter in such matters, hands down the final ruling.

But at this point, the alternatives are hardly more promising.

All the mitigating factors — “prompt acknowledgement and acceptance of responsibility and imposition of meaningful corrective measures and/or penalties; affirmative steps to expedite the final resolution; established history of self-reporting Level III or secondary violations”) on UH’s behalf cited by the the NCAA in the Public Infractions Decision should count for something.

Perhaps the real question UH should be asking itself right now is why it didn’t self-impose the postseason ban last year when it had the chance? The issue was on the table for several months, including after the NCAA issued its initial Notice of Allegations, officials confirmed at the time.

Had they tossed it into the mix of mea culpas (scholarship limits, forfeited victories, etc.) that was laid before the NCAA Committee on Infractions last year there would be no need for deadline decisions now.

But that was the gamble UH, with or without the advice of counsel, chose to undertake.

In light of that, maybe a half-court shot before the Infractions Appeals Committee doesn’t look so bad after all.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.