The NCAA doesn’t possess unlimited enforcement resources, and if you pay attention to the news, you know in recent weeks and months it had some business to take care of with SMU and Penn State.

After months of false alarms, the University of Hawaii’s number finally came up Friday. And even though the allegations are not unexpected, this was still a Dear John, IRS audit and Selective Service notice all rolled into one.

It’s definitely not an early Valentine. It probably starts with something like, "Rainbow Warrior basketball program, we regret to inform you …"

We have to say "probably" because as of Friday night, UH wouldn’t give it to us, and by extension, you.

Seven is the unlucky number, as in how many violations of its rules the NCAA is claiming. And we’re told they’re of the major variety — Levels I and II.

The missteps in and by themselves seem relatively mild.

But the NCAA is like any other authority figure in that it doesn’t like to be lied to, doesn’t like to have to wallow its way through conflicting stories to get to the truth. And that’s what it was forced to do in this investigation going back to early last year.

UH officials deciding how to disseminate the bad news weren’t much better themselves Friday afternoon. As tends to happen at Manoa in matters such as these, crisis led to entropy, and instead of releasing the NCAA letter for public consumption as the Honolulu Star-Advertiser requested, UH spent hours debating which names to black out and which names to leave in.

Eventually, it was too late to do anything.

And the really lame part of it is that everyone who has followed this story knows the names, anyway.

That kind of redaction inaction brings back bad memories of the Wonder Blunder, when UH turned a $200,000 mistake into something much more expensive — and not just in financial terms but also in frittering away of the precious capital of public trust.

UH also missed an opportunity to take its medicine during the best time for a negative story to break: Friday afternoon, when most people are paying attention to things other than news.

The thing is, true transparency is not something you should have to strategize.

As one of our ace copy editors, Seth Markow, said only half-jokingly, maybe UH was hoping this story would hold until 1:30 p.m. Sunday so it could release the NCAA’s notice of allegations at the same time as kickoff of a little football game in Glendale, Ariz.

It’s hard to see what purpose attempting to delay the beginning of the end game serves UH; regardless of the timeline, fired coaches Gib Arnold and Brandyn Akana are going to fight for their professional reputations, and the Hawaii program is going to have to deal with some sanctions from the NCAA.

The penalty phase comes later. But vacated wins, scholarship reductions and suspension from postseason play are all said to be on the table.

As for the current team, don’t worry too much. On the court, this edition of the Rainbow Warriors thrives despite the chaos around it. They bounce back from adversity.

Too bad we can’t say the same about the so-called leadership at Manoa, which continues to display a tendency to compound damage instead of controlling it.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.