MU & Self-Reporting

Two strange things happened this week in Marquette hoops.  First, the university announced a secondary rules violation.  That has been somewhat of a rarity for MU to be in violation of NCAA rules, at least compared to many other DI power programs.  The type of rules broken have been largely inadvertent, or honest mistake and they took the proper action in reporting them.  Stranger, Marquette, and Larry Williams specifically, have taken some grief for self reporting that secondary violation to the NCAA. The question is why the grief? It is not only common practice to do so, but a common sense approach as well. This is especially true in a world where the NCAA has clearly sent very strong signals the last 6 months that they taking a more focused look at institutional control of their membership. The reporting to the NCAA and the release of that information to the public is not only common, but has been a precedent at Marquette, long before Larry Williams ever became Athletic Director.

Here are some examples of secondary NCAA violations self-reported by Marquette men's basketball over the years.

In 1985, a Marquette assistant coach gave a ride to a recruit that was not permitted and Hank Raymonds reported the violation to the NCAA.

In 1986, first year coach Bob Dukiet met with Mike Flory during a dead period which resulted in MU self-reporting that violation.

In 1990, several Marquette basketball players were believed to be in violation of NCAA rules for receiving free parking. Marquette self reported that secondary rule violation to the NCAA.

In 1999, Tom Crean attended a practice that was off limits to college coaches. Marquette self-reported the secondary violation to the NCAA.

In 2011, Juan Anderson was suspended by the NCAA after MU self-reported a NCAA violation as a result of Anderson receiving free tickets to a Milwaukee Brewers playoff game.

Not to be outdone in our very own city, UW-Milwaukee recently self-reported 6 violations as reported by Don Walker in the Journal Sentinel. It seems Don Walker is the one that handles this type of story for the Journal Sentinel and NCAA related issues.

This is standard practice these days, whether it is Ohio State, Florida, Tennessee, Syracuse, UCLA, Texas, Marquette, or anyone else...all have self-reported secondary NCAA violations in the last few months and rightly so. Once it is reported, it will get picked up by the press and published if it involves a major program or team. It is not worth it for a school to hide something as trivial as some of these secondary violations. Not when the NCAA is looking for scalps to send a message. Report it, get it out in the open, move on.


For those that want to go down memory lane, an interesting article about recruiting violations and the recommendations by Al McGuire and Digger Phelps on how to clean it up.