NCAA's Notice of Allegations to the University Kansas Shows They Aren't Afraid of Going After Blue-Blood Programs

SI's Pat Forde on the University of Kansas releasing the NCAA's response to their response to the notice of allegations the university received regarding its basketball program.

On Thursday, Kansas released the NCAA response to its notice of allegations against the Jayhawks men's basketball program makes clear a couple of things. 

First of all, this is a really contentious case. These two entities, Kansas and NCAA enforcement are going at each other hard. The NCAA charges against Kansas are aggressive. Head coach Bill Self has level one violation allegations against him. The University of Kansas has allegations of failure to monitor and control its programs basketball program. 

This is a big time case. It underscores one important thing: People say the NCAA is afraid to go after blue-blood programs. Well, Kansas is about as blue-blood as it gets. Maybe not quite on the level of North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, but just below them. And this is a clear indication that they are not afraid - there is not a sacred cow out there for the NCAA enforcement. 

There were hints of major allegations, obviously major violations at Kansas, and they've gone after them and exposed them. 

The main thing that hurt the NCAA's credibility as an enforcement entity was when it failed to get North Carolina on the academic fraud issues three years ago. But that was then and this is now. And this tells me that the NCAA is going after Kansas hard. Kansas is fighting back hard. And the Committee on Infractions hearing between the two should be something.

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Pat Forde
PAT FORDE

Pat Forde is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated who covers college football and college basketball as well as the Olympics and horse racing. He cohosts the College Football Enquirer podcast and is a football analyst on the Big Ten Network. He previously worked for Yahoo Sports, ESPN and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. Forde has won 28 Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest awards, has been published three times in the Best American Sports Writing book series, and was nominated for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. A past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and member of the Football Writers Association of America, he lives in Louisville with his wife. They have three children, all of whom were collegiate swimmers.