So by now surely you’ve heard about or read this as well as this. Not sure what I can tell you to make you feel better, because reliving that chapter and overlooking a lot of progress in just standard operating procedure, let alone basketball, cannot feel especially good. There really isn’t much reporting to do on this because all you’re going to get are denials and no comments and the like — but understand I do know how to use my cell phone, and I lived this once before just as I was beginning as a beat writer.

I suppose the biscuit I could offer is that WVU policed itself quite capably during all of this as it happened and worked cooperatively with the NCAA. In the end, the Mountaineers ruled four people ineligible and successfully had three reinstated, which was a rather sizable achievement at that time considering how bad that whole ordeal looked.

And plus, what if Tyrone Sally never happened in 2003, 2004 and 2005? He was fantastic as a senior and people may have forgotten what he did against Creighton — the famed Sally Rally, from one of the worst games I ever saw him play to one of the most heroic clutch performances I ever witnessed, in a NCAA Tournament game he’d been praying to one day play in, no less — and how he pretty much saved WVU against Texas Tech. Yet he was always believed to be one of the four who were implicated in the scandal.

Still …

… the Mountaineers avoided all serious trouble from the NCAA, which essentially signed off on and agreed with what WVU did during the process and ultimately agreed that the school was insulated and merely the unknowing victim of some rather troubling outside forces. And that’s not me putting a spin on it — that’s what happened. I mean, WVU didn’t have to forfeit any of its eight wins from the 2001-02 season … and Hargett, quite clearly ineligible if he was taking money while at WVU, which WVU admitted then that it discovered to be true, actually won two of those games with late-game heroics.

Still, the NYT stories — and we can discuss the motive, if you want, but I don’t for a second believe the intent was to sling mud at WVU — could indeed open eyes at the NCAA. And while I sound all cool and calm and Clancy Wiggum, one doesn’t simply know what the NCAA will do. Not this NCAA.

There is four-year statute of limitations, but WVU wouldn’t be completely clear of it, and, who knows, might receive a notice of allegations in the future, because of the exception in clause (c) below:

32.6.3 Statute of Limitations

Allegations included in a notice of allegations shall be limited to possible violations occurring not earlier than four years before the date the notice of inquiry is forwarded to the institution or the date the institution notifies (or, if earlier, should have notified) the enforcement staff of its inquiries into the matter. However, the following shall not be subject to the four-year limitation: (Revised: 10/12/94, 4/24/03)

(a) Allegations involving violations affecting the eligibility of a current student-athlete;
(b) Allegations in a case in which information is developed to indicate a pattern of willful violations on the part of the institution or individual involved, which began before but continued into the four-year period; and
(c) Allegations that indicate a blatant disregard for the Association’s fundamental recruiting, extra-benefit, academic or ethical-conduct regulations or that involve an effort to conceal the occurrence of the violation. In such cases, the enforcement staff shall have a one-year period after the date information concerning the matter becomes available to the NCAA to investigate and submit to the institution a notice of allegations concerning the matter.

In this case, the NCAA’s one-year clock would be in its infancy today. Certainly, WVU does not want the NCAA to come calling, but I would think just as surely WVU is confident in whatever eventual outcome would come from that visit.

Also, live in studio at WAJR in Morgantown at 9:05 a.m. today. I guess this is going to be a 40-minute run, which should be fun.