Big shout out to Hispanic Basketball Player loving DocNaismith (aka the guy who stole the idea of the game of Basketball) of Phog.net aka Tardville for bringing this to the forefront of discussion back on Phog.net aka Tardville.
This is an attempt to recap the Tony Mitchell eligibility situation.
To fully understand the current Tony Mitchell saga you have to go back to Dallas in 2005 and 2006. The Dallas school district has long been notorious for improper academic treatment of star athletes and at that time Darrell Arthur, Kevin Rogers and Kandrake Johnigan all had transcripts altered to portray them having passed core classes required for base qualification as an NCAA student athlete. They used this information to defraud the NCAA, as well as on an annual basis falsify documents attesting to the validity of their transcripts which voided their eligibility. This blew up in the NCAA’s face in 2008 when it was revealed that not only did they allow these athletes to incorrectly pass through the Clearinghouse but it was exposed that the 2008 title game was possibly the most shameful in NCAA history in that the leading scorer for each team was actually an ineligible player, the winner was on major probation for cheating, and per NCAA rules the combined records of the two programs should have been 0-79. This story was broken and followed through by a highly decorated investigative journalist named Brett Shipp of WFAA-TV. It is also inherent in the back story to understand the NCAA. Not only is it not obligated to answer to anyone or justify its actions in any capacity, those who think its function is to serve and police the member institutions and look out for the well being of the student athletes are sorely mislead.
“What people need to realize about the NCAA is that it is not a sports organization by any means,'' says Brent Clark, an Oklahoma lawyer and former NCAA investigator who has studied the association for more than 30 years. ``It's an economic cartel dedicated to preserving the product.''
The NCAA reacts to public pressure and negative press, and that is about it. If there isn’t a widespread public outcry or bad press that treatment is being handled in embarrassingly bad fashion the NCAA is under no obligation to do anything. And unless there is financial motivation to act, they won’t. MU is historically bad at creating this pressure and following through on it, and accordingly they have been treated historically bad in virtually every ruling or decision the NCAA has made regarding MU. Be that getting hammered in 1990 despite an investigation that essentially uncovered bad oversight and recordkeeping (which is detailed and gives interesting perspective into the process of the time in the book Stormin Back, the absurd ruling of ineligibility for Uche Okafor in 2002, or MU officials not going to bat for the program in 2004 and letting the NCAA make an example out of Quin Snyder by rolling up numerous minor violations and calling it a major violations in conjuncture with uncharacteristically harsh penalties (this time there was mounting public pressure, but it was pushing the NCAA to act even though it wasn’t uncovering anything because area newspapers were constantly keeping the focus on the pending investigation).
So with that backdrop, back in 2009 a rising recruit with a pretty sketchy transcript named Tony Mitchell made a visit to KSU and signed on the spot. Frank Martin and staff immediately redirected young Tony to Florida to enroll in the Center of Life academy, where Martin still wields tremendous influence in the community from his time as a high school powerhouse coach. Center of Life Academy is a private school accredited by a home schooling association, and is essentially a diploma mill and basketball factory, although historically the NCAA has accepted graduates from the school as being qualified for D1 play. Mitchell cleans up his transcripts there, but at the same time his mother is very displeased about what she feels like was a situation of her son being taken advantage of by KSU and convinces him to de-commit (it is widely and falsely believed by KSU fans that MU had something to do with this, as they were not involved with Tony Mitchell in any capacity at that point and they are confusing the situation with when Mike Anderson successfully out-recruited Steffon Hannah from Bob Huggins by convincing his mother MU was the place to send her son). No longer associated with KSU, Mitchell transfers back home to Dallas and enrolls in Pinkston.
As a private school accredited through home schooling, the DISD does not recognize Center of Life Academy credits, so as is customary practice Mitchell takes tests to demonstrate proficiency in the classes taken to essentially earn the credits that Pinkston does not accept from Center of Life. He passes all classes and is considered a senior in good standing.
This is where investigative reporter Brett Shipp re-enters the picture. Someone (and several inside sources have strongly alluded to the possibility of a member of the KSU basketball staff being that someone) improperly floats the information to Shipp that Tony Mitchell’s proficiency testing and academic history might have been questionable. Completely miffed that the NCAA took no action on his conclusive past reporting on a similar subject, he undergoes a similar campaign on exposing the Mitchell situation. He writes that 8 of the 14 credits Mitchell brought with him back to Dallas from Florida were not accepted and were thus tested out of through proficiency tests (as is completely standard and normal) and using inflammatory wording claims:
“he took the equivalent of nine course make-up exams in two days — five of them over a two-hour period. Mitchell passed every test, and — in just a matter of hours — went from being a freshman at Pinkston to qualifying as a senior.”
Again there is nothing odd about this at all, of course a proficiency test would take a matter of hours and of course being given credit for the classes one has taken as a sophomore and a junior that did not transfer initially would then give them the credits to move from a freshman to a senior. The DISD panics from the bad publicity and throws the scores of the proficiency tests out. Shipp goes on to write that Mitchell had numerous unexcused absences on his record, but again portrays it in the most inflammatory way possible by listing the amount of hours of absences instead of days and not clarify what the number represents (for example instead of saying Mitchell has 2 day of unexcused absence he would write he missed 14 classes).
Mitchell retakes all of the TAKS testing (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills), and under careful supervision to confirm the validity passes all sections with one exception. He fails the math portion by 1 point. Because he no longer has all of the required core classes for graduation, he does not graduate with his class in the spring.
From there it gets kind of murky, because much like the Dallas reporter the public shouldn’t have access to specifics about a high school kids academic record. It has been widely alluded to that Mitchell has since passed the math portion of the TAKS. He also received an ACT score high enough to qualify, but that is a somewhat arbitrary number as the NCAA uses a sliding scale and requires different minimum ACT scores dependant on successful class work. If the NCAA determines some of Mitchell’s class work isn’t valid then he might need a higher ACT score to compensate. There is also the issue that potentially the NCAA will determine one of the core required classes is in question, in which case Mitchell would not be eligible unless he were to pass that class (similar to DeAndre Thomas who signed with MU in 2005. He had a good GPA and a good ACT score, but didn’t take the required core classes and had to go the JUCO route). But more so the NCAA wields no real official power and if they are requesting clarification and documentation from the Center of Life Academy they don’t have any way to force their hand if they are not cooperating.
It has currently been alleged that KSU is continuing to hold a grudge, and that Martin is using his considerable influence in the area to ask that the school he specifically placed Mitchell at to get him qualify be uncooperative with the NCAA and continue to drag their feet. If that is the case, there likely won’t be a resolution to the situation.
The aspect the NCAA is likely banking on is that by continuing to not render a decision of any capacity, they are essentially avoiding any responsibility. It was reported in numerous instances during his senior year of high school that Mitchell would have been a strong candidate for jumping to the NBA had the rule change not been implemented barring freshman from participating in the draft. A delay of a couple more weeks will be the same as an ineligible ruling as Mitchell will have missed the deadline to enroll in classes for the second semester and will be eligible for the upcoming NBA draft. It’s a far cry from the Josh Selby situation at ku, where every article mentioned him and ku was continuing to push the pending decision into the spotlight. MU is largely taking the position of ‘no comment’, and the NCAA is accordingly doing nothing.
There is precedence for a high profile MU athlete gaining eligibility this late in the process, as one of our 4 McDonald’s All American’s MU has ever signed, Travon Bryant, was not declared eligible to play until late December several days before the Braggin Rights game. However, the difference being that Bryant was actually taking classes at Maine Central Institute and the delay was completing and being graded for those classes to meet minimum requirements. By most accounts, Mitchell isn’t doing anything other than simply waiting on the NCAA to rule with the information they already have. Nothing in terms of his material status is going to change in any capacity. Someone simply needs to look at the information available and render a decision.
And my money is on that not happening.[/i]
