Quote Originally Posted by xubrew View Post
The quote "The NCAA got so mad at Kentucky that they gave Cleveland State three years probation" is admittedly funny. It's also complete nonsense. Cleveland State never got hit with anything so far as I know. There aren't really any examples of smaller programs getting beat up on. If anything they're shone a lot more leniency. And, the guy who said that, was JERRY TARKANIAN!! He coached one of the dirtiest programs of all time, and one of the most popular programs of all time. It's not like UNLV in the late 80s and early 90s was some program on the level of Cleveland State. They were arguably the biggest program in all of NCAA basketball. So that idea that he was a) clean, and b) being unfairly treated because he was the little guy, is redonkulous. But...still kind of funny.

Cleveland State was put on probation in 1988, two years after beating Indiana in the first round of the tournament and making the Sweet 16. Their coach was friends with Tarkanian. What I didn't realize is that the violations involved Manute Bol.

Ironically, this was about the same time as Kentucky and the Emery Envelope, which caused UK to get hit very hard (two year post season ban and one year TV ban, which I'm not sure how you could do that today). I don't know the timing of the quote or all the violations, but I'm guessing Cleveland State's penalties had just been handed out about the time the UK story was breaking, resulting in the quote.


Here is an article which mentions Cleveland State's probation, along with the many other transgressions of their head coach at the time, whose arrest was apparent caught on the local news:

https://thestacks.deadspin.com/the-f...der-1553579005