UH to find out if it will get hit with a historic penalty

There are some NCAA milestones that you cherish, celebrate and frame.

And, then, there is the less enviable distinction of becoming a precedent in NCAA enforcement annals.

After a 29-month process, the University of Hawaii expects to find out shortly, maybe even as soon as this week, if it will become one for the books, the bulging infractions case books, that is.

If the NCAA’s version of the Supreme Court, the Infractions Appeals Committee, does not see fit to vacate the penalty imposed by the Committee on Infractions in December, the men’s basketball team could become the first team banned from postseason play by the NCAA under its new penalty structure as “aggravated” without a finding of lack of institutional control or a Level I penalty and with multiple mitigating factors.

The NCAA instituted the structure Oct. 30, 2012, promising penalties designed to be “demonstrably more severe,” according to Oregon State President Ed Ray of the NCAA Board of Directors at the time.

Since then, according to documents in NCAA Case No. 00202 this spring, UH would become the 17th school penalized under the revised bylaw. Only two of the prior 16 have received postseason bans, one of them (St. Peter’s swimming), self-imposed, and the other, Southern Methodist (men’s basketball and golf), were the results of multiple Level I violations, the most severe category.

UH’s violations, which straddle the old and new penalty structures, were all eventually classified as Level II or III.

In its sharply-worded April 8 rebuttal to the COI, UH claimed, “… the imposition of a postseason ban is excessive when the facts of this case are compared to other COI decisions, no matter which penalty structure those decisions employ, almost all of which involve far more egregious conduct than that found in this case.”

Moreover, UH asserted, “The COI offers no explanation for its severe deviation from this precedent. Accordingly, (the committee on appeals) should vacate the postseason ban penalty.”

UH officials have recently declined comment beyond the official filings until a decision is announced.

A mainland administrator with experience before the NCAA and familiar with the UH case said, “in this situation I would think it would be highly unusual for Hawaii to receive the ban when no (finding) of a lack of institutional control was found.”

But, he added, “this is the NCAA and they are playing by new rules.”

At this late date a favorable verdict by the IAC, as much as it would be cheered, would be little more than a moral victory for UH. Six players who had eligibility remaining when the 2015-16 season concluded have already scattered.

The impact of the possibility of the 2016-17 postseason ban that has hung over the program is a large part of why UH said it is prepared to give men’s basketball coach Eran Ganot, who came aboard after sanctions were announced, a multi-year extension.

Meanwhile, UH waits to see if it can elude the ignominy of becoming the “Hawaii precedent.”

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