Why is Mark Emmert talking out of both sides of his mouth?

Let me preface this by sating that I am not a conspiracy theorist and I do not think that the NCAA is “out to get” Kentucky.  I do think however, that Enes Kanter would be playing by now if he had stayed enrolled at Washington.  I am not alone in this train of thought.  If Kanter had stayed at Washington, there would be no Pete Thamel article about him because Pete Thamel was very clearly out to get Calipari. Simply put, I think that the NCAA would have ruled on Kanter by the first of November if he were still a Husky.  The Thamel article just necessitated a lot of back tracking and reconfirming information that had already been confirmed.  And if anyone thinks that the Thamel drama did not add add time to the Kanter timeline, please tell me why.

And because of the wildly consistent rulings of the NCAA on the Cameron Newton and Ohio State player rulings, there was a tremendous pressure on the NCAA to enforce the rules and well, Kentucky was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the NCAA got around to ruling on Kanter.  So in a way, it took a perfect storm of Thamel and the previous NCAA rulings which got tons of bad press which virtually guaranteed the NCAA was going to slam the door on the next public case, whether it be Kentucky or Wright State.

Yesterday, during halftime of the Kansas/Michigan game, CBS’s Seth Davis had a report in which he stated he had talked to NCAA head Mark Emmert about the Kanter ruling.  According to Davis, Emmert said that “very few schools actually recruited” Kanter due to all of this Turkish Pro stuff following him and that “no one should be shocked” by the ruling.

First off, red flags go off when the head of the NCAA starts trying to publicly defend a decision.  Emmert was not holding one on ones with reporters after the Morgan Newton decision and definitely after the Ohio State players snafu.  There was the standard press releases, but not “one on ones” like this.  And for me, there needed to be some type of public disclosure that Emmert’s old school, the University of Washington had previously recruited Enes Kanter and had a commitment from him.  It is true that Kanter did de-commit from the Huskies, but Emmert’s old school was standing by Kanter and obviously thought that Kanter would be eligible to play …. if not, why would they take a commitment from Kanter?

It makes no sense why Emmert would make these public statements without at least acknowledging his former school’s involvement in Kanter.  And plenty of questions arise on Seth Davis’s role as a reporter.  Even a reporter for a middle school would have a follow up question:  “So why did your former school get a recruitment from Kanter if he were such a bad risk”.  But nothing from Davis.  As a matter of fact, Davis tweeted out later that Washington had “backed off of Kanter” after hearing there may be problems with his recruitment.  That tweet has since been refuted both by Fox’s Jeff Goodman and Dick Vitale, who spent most of the weekend trashing the NCAA’s decision on Kanter.

As a matter of fact, Vitale, The Sporting New’s Mike DeCourcy, and ESPN Andy Katz have emerged as the major Kanter supporters in this whole deal and have all publicly blasted and questioned the NCAA ruling.  It’s easy for fans of other schools to see think that Kentucky fans have a case of “sour grapes” over this case and in a way, this whole handling of the Kanter case have turned even me into a conspiracy freak over this ruling.

Over the past few months, the NCAA has been wildly inconsistent and the fact that the head of the NCAA has an exclusive interview with a reporter in which he is still defending his decision is nothing more than trying to put a positive spin on a decision that has been widely blasted.  If Emmert wants to talk to reporters, let him hold a press briefing and open it to the Vitale’s, DeCourcy’s, and Katz’s of the media world instead of rolling in back alleys to get your word out.  All it does it make people question your motives and realize that the NCAA is acting once again, wildly inconsistent, with their past stances.  And that is why Kentucky fans are suspicious of the NCAA.

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