NCAA sanctions “Not effective,” Boyle says

This year’s Final Four has many storylines, maybe the most interesting one, though, is the one the NCAA definitely doesn’t want you to talk about. All four teams have been involved in NCAA investigations in the last decade. Oklahoma, Syracuse and Villanova all served penalties. North Carolina is still under investigation.

On Tuesday, at his year-end press conference, Colorado head coach Tad Boyle was asked if it’s frustrating for a coach who has never had compliance issues to see that. Boyle, as always, answered very honestly.

“There’s frustration. I don’t know what goes on at other programs, but I have an idea of who’s doing things the right way and who’s not. There is some frustration, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t. I think if you’re not running your program the right way – I’m not casting stones on anybody – but if you get into issues with the NCAA and compliance – there are a lot of people who argue against this – but taking postseason play away is the sucker punch that the NCAA has to send a message that that’s not acceptable. Suspending a coach is not effective. I’m not talking about any program in particular, but there are programs that do it the right way, there are programs who operate the gray area and there are programs who cheat. That’s why we have compliance officers at every institution, that’s why we have NCAA enforcement staff. I think they do a good job. There are a lot of moving targets when it comes to that. I know how we operate this program and I’m very proud of that. When you see other programs that maybe live in the gray area it is frustrating, but that’s life.”

Hard to blame Boyle for his frustrations.