St. Johns self-imposes sanctions-improper benefits

[GUHoya07]

Former player Abe Keita was paid by a member of the athletic department. The NCAA is still investigating the situation.

sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=1932392

[HoyaNyr320]

So they're going to have to re-structure the tournament now... I'm guessing that they'll reduce it to a 10-team tournament and award 6 first round "byes" and have the bottom 4 teams "play-in" to the quarterfinals. This means that the 11th-placed team, along with St Johns, will not be competing in the Big East Tournament. Although I think Georgetown shouldn't have a problem making the BE Tournament, it's something to think about when BE play starts... those games against Rutgers and West Virginia suddenly became even more important...

[nodak89]

HoyaNyr320 said:

So they're going to have to re-structure the tournament now... I'm guessing that they'll reduce it to a 10-team tournament and award 6 first round "byes" and have the bottom 4 teams "play-in" to the quarterfinals. This means that the 11th-placed team, along with St Johns, will not be competing in the Big East Tournament. Although I think Georgetown shouldn't have a problem making the BE Tournament, it's something to think about when BE play starts... those games against Rutgers and West Virginia suddenly became even more important...

I hadn't thought about it from a BET standpoint. We better make the tournament so we can have at least one game on nat'l TV (assuming the early rounds make it on some version of ESPN).

[HoyaChris]

I think it is extremely unlikely that they will reduce the number of teams to ten. The almost certain outcome is that the top 5 teams will get a bye and 6 throughh 11 will play in to an 8 team bracket.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

Under the current contract (unless it changed this year), all of the games are televised by ESPN, which probably means that the conference needs to have four first-round games. Does that strip the 4th best team of a first round bye?

[hoyarooter]

You may be right, THB, but by that same logic, the contract may also require 4 second round games. If there are 4 first round games, only 7 teams will remain, making 4 second round games impossible. Something obviously has to give, here, and my guess would be that the conference and ESPN will negotiate one of the first round games out, resulting in 5 first round byes. We'll see.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

Good point... and a good reason that I didn't major in math.

[YB]

Couldn't they get anybody better than Abe Keita for their money?

[DanMcQ]

YB said:

Couldn't they get anybody better than Abe Keita for their money?

YB said:

I have a problem with people who attack 18 and 19 year old kids on a chat board.

So from this are we to assume ol' Abe is 20 or 21?

[GUHoya07]

It apparently hasnt been determined yet whether St. John's will be kept out of the Big East Tournament. We will have to wait and see what happens, but as of right now they are just prevented from being in the NCAA's and NIT.

[JimmyHoya]

Good time for them to lose them, at least......

[DanMcQ]

Anybody see Jarvis interviewed at halftime of the NC State game?

He issued a no comment denial of involvement... saying that he was the one who called the NCAA while he was there, while he couldn't comment on anything he answered 'no' to the questions of whether he or any of his staff had made illegal payments to players.

[FromTheBeginning]

SJU really hitting themselves hard by declining any post season possibilities for this year.