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One week short of three years — and several bucks north of $1.3 million — from when the NCAA and University of Hawaii men’s basketball first began to tango, we finally have a resolution to long-simmering NCAA Case No. 00020.
The current Rainbow Warriors — none of whom were named in the proceedings — were notified a day before a Big West Conference deadline that postseason sanctions have been dropped and they are allowed to take their rightful place in the conference tournament next week.
The NCAA also announced, in a four paragraph wrap-up to the hundreds of the pages of testimony and documents, that the ’Bows can emerge from scholarship purgatory.
So, now it is time to sort out some of the winners from the losers in one of the most turbulent chapters in UH athletic history.
Winners
>> Most of the lawyers, several of whom billed at $275 an hour, plus expenses.
UH hired an Alabama firm specialized in NCAA infractions and a local firm to represent it in contract matters. It also paid for multiple attorneys for deposed men’s basketball coach Gib Arnold and representation for assistant coach Brandyn Akana and former compliance director Amanda Paterson.
>> Paterson, who, despite being cited in the NCAA report as part of a frayed relationship with Arnold that was “tense to the point of being nearly dysfunctional,” got public support from the administration as well as a promotion to assistant athletic director and a raise.
>> Eran Ganot. At age 33, with just one season as an associate head coach, landed a job as the second-youngest head coach in UH history. And, as a house-warming bonus, was immediately gifted with a postseason-ready, if tempestuous, team. Ganot parlayed it into a multi-year extension and probably earned another one with his coaching this year.
>> Brocke Stepteau, a little-used walk-on guard a year ago, has gotten 19 starts and 17 times as many minutes of playing time because UH’s ranks were thinned by attrition.
>> David Matlin. Not only got the athletic director’s job but got an opportunity to hire a basketball coach in his first month while some ADs wait many years for one.
Losers
>> Gib Arnold. Yes, he got that $500,000 settlement. But he also lost out on upwards of $1.2 million in the form of a three-year contract extension — with a raise to $400,000 a year — that had been sitting on the Manoa chancellor’s desk before the firing. He landed a scouting gig with the Celtics but never got to coach his best team. And, the NCAA upheld sanctions against him, so good luck on being a Division I head coach again anytime soon.
>> The players, like Stefan Jankovic, now in Erie, Pa., who tweeted: “Lol @NCAA a year late” after leaving amid fears of being denied a postseason senior year opportunity.
>> The fans, who got short-changed on so many fronts.
>> Tom Apple. The stated reason for his demotion from Manoa chancellor was an inability to get a grip on campus finances. It can’t have helped that he was also entertaining Arnold’s contract extension in the midst of the NCAA investigation.
>> Some of the lawyers. Is it a coincidence that change came to the ranks of UH counsel after the language in Arnold’s contract opened the school up to the huge buyout?
>> UC Santa Barbara. If the Rainbow Warriors’ postseason ban had been upheld by the NCAA, the last-place Gauchos (5-12, 3-11 BW) would have taken UH’s place.
>> The Big West Conference. Having the field for your postseason tournament up in the air while waiting for an NCAA decision doesn’t do much for ticket sales when some of your most fervent fans have to travel 2,500 miles at a late date to get there.
Then there is the NCAA, which, as always, is in a world unto itself. Not really a winner since its new penalty structure became a time-consuming point of contention and precedent setting for the Committee on Infractions and the Infractions Appeals Committee. But not a loser either since what it does to far-flung UH and the off-the-radar Big West is little noticed.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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