Jay Bilas has spoken with numerous NCAA administrators and not one can justify Jim Boeheim’s suspension. The Syracuse head coach isn’t allowed to communicate with players or coaches for a full month while he misses nine games. On Thursday, the NCAA announced that Boeheim starts serving the suspension this Saturday at Georgetown instead of the beginning of conference play.

“Well it doesn’t make any sense,” Bilas told The Daily Orange on Thursday. “The game suspension is just a shaming device so going further than that strikes me as being unjustifiable.”

It’s been nine months since the NCAA first handed down punishments to Syracuse for violations stemming from as far back as 2001. The meat of the violations were basketball and football players being overpaid at the Oneida YMCA, missteps with the university’s drug policy and changing the grade on one of former SU center Fab Melo’s papers.

The actual investigation lasted about eight years and Boeheim is just now learning of his final punishment, two days before the suspension kicks in.

“This is an incredible waste of time and resources,” Bilas said, “and the punishment was totally disproportionate to the violations.”

Bilas repeatedly called the ruling an embarrassment for the NCAA. He labeled the organization as the “perfect system of non-accountability for administrators.” The NCAA found Boeheim guilty for a lack of institutional control, deeming him responsible for the happenings at the YMCA, with the drug testing program and in the meeting to change Melo’s grade.

Bilas compared Syracuse’s situation to that of a regular classroom: If a non-athlete is accused of academic impropriety, the professor doesn’t get punished. Only the student deals with judicial boards and faces punishment. In this case, Boeheim, who granted, has a more watchful eye over his players than a professor does over their students, shoulders the brunt of the discipline.

“So now a coach is going to be responsible for everything that goes on at YMCAs? That makes no sense,” Bilas said, “and the coach is responsible for the complexity of a drug policy? That makes zero sense.”

Boeheim was supposed to be in control of everything, per the NCAA, and that’s why he is being punished. Now, he’ll be in control of nothing for 31 days.

The NCAA found him unable to promote an atmosphere of compliance, one of several vague terms Bilas sees the NCAA leaning on to dole out punishments without concrete reason.

“Atmosphere of compliance, what the hell does that mean?” Bilas said “Like you can spray something or hang up an air freshener and then you’ve got the atmosphere of compliance?”

Boeheim doesn’t know how he’ll fill time during the month he can’t have contact with the team. He only has two days to prepare his staff for the 31 days without him. Mike Hopkins will now debut as Syracuse’s interim head coach 25 days sooner than he planned.

The NCAA wants to publicly shame coaches, Bilas said, as it’s done with Boeheim. His suspension was moved up from conference play because the NCAA initially “abused its discretion,” which Bilas called a “blistering indictment on the process.” The backlash from him and others that’s resulted after an eight-year investigation finally coming to an end, however, is shifting the fault back on the governing body of college sports.

“These are not complex issues of law that you’re dealing with on some sort of federal court or federal court appeals level,” Bilas said. “This is really simple, straightforward stuff and it’s just yet another embarrassment for the NCAA.”

Published on December 3, 2015 at 2:49 pm

Contact Matt: mcschnei@syr.edu | @matt_schneidman