Instead Of Doing The Smart Thing And Changing Their Rules, The NCAA Is About To Hammer 'At Least 6 Programs, Including 2 High-Profile Teams'

[CBS] - At least six Division I men’s basketball programs will receive Notices of Allegations for Level I violations from the NCAA by the summer, stemming from the federal government’s recently completed investigation of the sport, a top NCAA official told CBS Sports.

Stan Wilcox, NCAA vice president for regulatory affairs, said two high-profile programs would receive notices of allegations by early July.

The remaining four would be rolled out later in the summer in what was described as a wave of NCAA investigations meant to clean up major-college basketball.

“There’s even another group of cases that we’re still working on,” Wilcox said. “The main thing is that we’re up and ready. We’re moving forward and you’ll see consequences.”

Level I violations are considered the most serious by the NCAA. They carry the strongest punishments that can include scholarship reductions, postseason bans and show-cause orders against coaches. According to the NCAA, a Notice of Allegationsis sent after an investigation has closed. 

So here we are finally starting to get some ‘real’ fallout from the FBI investigation. Remember that pointless thing that led to some jail time for a couple assistant coaches? Yeah, well the NCAA is now ready to ‘hammer at least 6 programs, including 2 high-profile programs.’

Now, the debate will be what qualifies as the high-profile programs. I’d venture to guess it’s Arizona and Louisville since they were two of the main ones brought up in the trial and Arizona’s Book Richardson is one of the assistant coaches that got arrested. However, Kansas could also potentially be there. They were brought up multiple times during the trials and ultimately it comes down to what evidence the NCAA has.

But, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again now. The NCAA should be looking at themselves and their own rules instead of trying to hammer programs. I mean, go ahead and hammer Louisville and Kansas, I’ll laugh. But, I’d rather see these kids be able to get some money and dudes not go to jail for doing their job.

Change what amateurism means. It’s so outdated in the rule book. Let these kids get money for their name, likeness and image. It’s not that hard. Who cares that they get paid? Spare me that they get their school paid for. If you’re talented, you get your school paid for. Don’t like it, get talented at something.

Let the free market dictate what these guys are worth. If that’s $5,000 or $500,000, so be it. Again, why do you really care? You don’t. You just want to be outraged that the standard bluebloods will continue to get 90% of the best recruits. I just don’t get why we’re still pretending like it’s the 1950s.

So as for teams that could be in this first group of 6? Some combo of Kansas, Arizona, Louisville, Oklahoma State, Auburn and LSU. Either way, let’s just change the NCAA rules and start getting closer to 2019.

Also, live look at Kentucky haters (waving at you)