It was nothing less than euphoric when both the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors and Wahine basketball teams became Big West Champions last week. Both teams and their coaches, Eran Ganot and Laura Beeman, have made the university — and the state — proud.
But as the Warriors prepare to take on California Friday evening in Spokane, Wash., there will be an obvious elephant in the arena — NCAA sanctions stemming from seven violations of NCAA rules while former coach Gib Arnold was at the helm.
The most damaging was the post-season ban on the Warriors for 2016-17, and the university has asked an appeals panel to vacate the penalty. Unfortunately for UH, appeals take months to resolve and the lingering uncertainty will continue to wreak havoc on the team’s future.
That’s unfair. Once it learned of the violations, UH took a proactive approach in accepting responsibility and working to clean up the mess, even though the NCAA’s actions arguably were disproportionately harsh.
The ban likely will adversely affect Ganot’s recruiting efforts — even fresh off a Big West championship and the first-year coach being named Big West Coach of the Year.
Also unclear is whether the team will be able to retain key players who, if playing their last year in 2016-17, can opt to transfer without sitting out a year.
The NCAA should move swiftly to reverse the ban so as not to further impede Ganot’s forward progress. There is far too much at stake for the Warriors, a team that has achieved so much success — even as the NCAA drama played out — and clearly has positive momentum heading into next season.
UH’s Level II and Level III sanctions stem from allowing the basketball team’s director of operations to coach the team during practices, failing to report extra benefits provided to athletes, and misleading the NCAA during the investigation, among other things. Yet the players at the center of the NCAA rule violations have long since left the program, and Arnold and Brandyn Akana, coaches at the time the infractions were committed, are no longer with the university.
Slapping a post-season ban on a new coach and players who had nothing to do with the underlying violations was heavy-handed and, according to UH’s Alabama-based attorneys, contrary to precedent.
In its appeal, UH’s attorneys cited 13 cases adjudicated by the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions (COI) between 2009 and 2016, noting the COI “does not explain how this case could be so substantially different from all of these cases so as to justify the imposition of the post-season ban.” The appeal further states that UH was treated more harshly than programs committing serious Level I violations, more evidence the COI penalties were excessive.
The Warriors and Wahine have their sights set on the Big Dance, and staying at the dance as long as possible.
However, for a few Warriors, the decision to continue in Hawaii or move on after this season will weigh heavily on them in the coming weeks and months.
They, as well as the university, need and deserve more clarity from the NCAA so they can plan their futures.
For the moment, however, we hope those futures include great success during March Madness, which kicks off Friday for the Warriors and Saturday for the Wahine against UCLA.
