Should SMU’s Larry Brown Be Banned from the NCAA Forever?
Those violations included academic fraud, unethical conduct and lack of head coach control.
This isn’t the only time we’ve seen suspensions like this with head coaches in college basketball. Kentucky’s John Calipari and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim come to mind as coaches who have had past suspensions or, at least, transgressions against the NCAA in recent memory.
You can always argue whether Calipari or Boeheim should have their jobs terminated or even be suspended for a whole year. But the NCAA did an ok job of taking care of those situations. But this situation is different.
The NCAA got this one wrong.
Brown should’ve been banned from the game of basketball. Period.
You can’t argue that Larry Brown is a great basketball coach. He’s in the Basketball Hall of Fame for a reason. He’s the only coach in basketball history to win both an NCAA national championship, with Kansas in 1988, and an NBA title, with the Pistons in 2004.
But there is more to being a head coach than just the X’s and O’s, especially at the collegiate level.
As a collegiate head coach, you are expected to be the leader for those kids. You are supposed to be a role model. Someone that your players look up to.
That is not Larry Brown.
You might think that I am being harsh on Brown. Everyone in college sports pushes the rules a little bit right? Of course they do. But not to this extent.
This is not the first time he has put a school on probation. And no, it’s not the second time either.
This is the third time this has happened. With three different schools, by the way.
The first time he got caught cheating was when he was the head coach for UCLA. He took the 1979–80 team to the NCAA title game and lost to Louisville. But, that appearance was later vacated by the NCAA after two players were found to be ineligible.
He then went to the NBA for a couple of years before returning to coach the Kansas Jayhawks, where he would eventually win a championship.
After winning the championship in 1988 Brown decided to go back to the NBA. But, during the next season, NCAA sanctions were levied against Kansas as a result of recruiting violations under Brown. Kansas was then banned from the 1989 NCAA Tournament, which is the only time a reigning champion has been banned from defending its title.
Brown went to coach in the NBA again for another 20 years before returning to college once again to coach the SMU Mustangs in 2012.
And now this.
You can talk about how he has over 1,500 career victories or that he has won almost 60 percent of the games he’s coached.
But the important stat to me, and the stat that should be the defining factor in this entire situation, is 3-for-3.
In baseball, going 3-for-3 is fantastic. But it’s the complete opposite in this case.
Larry Brown is 3-for-3 in getting schools sanctioned.
That alone should be the reason that he should never coach again.
