Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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NCAA has awarded 33 Duke lacrosse players a 5th year of eligibility. An interesting situation, I think the NCAA did the right thing.

This is huge for Duke who had 13 Seniors who thought they had played their last game in Monday's loss to Johns Hopkins. This should make them the pre-season #1 team next year.

Tewaarton (Lacrosse's Heisman) winner Matt Danowski; 1st team All-Americans Zack Greer, Casey Carrol & Nick O'Hara & 3rd team All-Americans Tony McDevitt & Dan Loftus were all seniors this season.

Danowski was expected to be the top pick in tonight's Major League Lacrosse draft but has not been selected in the first 2 rounds. Zack Greer was also expected to go in the first round and remains undrafted. I would assume this means they've told teams they are retuning to Duke.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

Such [censored].

The NCAA sets an awful precedent.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

The NCAA is retarded for granting this, and Duke is a giant gaywad for even asking for it. DUKE is the one that suspended the whole team based on speculative claims from a crack whore. ugh.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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Such [censored].

The NCAA sets an awful precedent.

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uhh how so? NCAA is shockingly doing the right thing.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

This is the wrong thing. Duke is being rewarded for throwing its guys under the bus.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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This is the wrong thing. Duke is being rewarded for throwing its guys under the bus.

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Or doing the right thing by not penalizing the players thrown under the bus.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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Such [censored].

The NCAA sets an awful precedent.

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uhh how so? NCAA is shockingly doing the right thing.

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First and foremost, DUKE cancelled Duke's season. Not anybody else. Not the NCAA.

Secondly, the NCAA is the first one to come down as hard as they can from some kid that gets lunch money from a coach. Now a school cancels their own season and the kids get an extra year.

Thirdly, they played half the [censored] year!

Fourthly, yes the kids were innocent of the accused crime. But let's not pretend that they didn't set up what was probably a dangerous situation. And I'm sure there were crimes committed, as there was surely underage drinking going on at the house.

Fifthly, the NCAA has denied medical redshirts to players who have played less than a quarter of a team's games.

Sixthly, does every NCAA athlete suspend in the course of a felony investigation now get his or her season back?

Sevently, what's to prevent a school now from creating a false controversy, canceling a season, and applying for all team members to get an extra year of eligibility?

Eightly, lacrosse teams are replete with underclassmen who get very little, if any, playing time. These kids who would have gotten no playing time, now get a full year of playing time as more developed players, to the benefit of Duke or another school, and to the detriment of every other school playing the sport.

Ninthly, Duke [censored] up and everybody else on their schedule for the next 3 years has to play against 5th year seniors? How exactly is that fair to their opponents?

Tenthly, 2 of the teams games were canceled SOLELY BECAUSE OF THE PARTY, and not because of the rape allegations. (At least according to the official statement...they probably knew about the coming allegations at the time.)

I think 10 is enough.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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This is the wrong thing. Duke is being rewarded for throwing its guys under the bus.

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Or doing the right thing by not penalizing the players thrown under the bus.

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Duke cancelled the season, not the NCAA. If the players feel wronged (as they should), they should take it up with Duke.

Maybe I'm looking at it too simplistically, but the NCAA is essentially bailing out Duke here for its egregious error.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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Duke cancelled the season, not the NCAA. If the players feel wronged (as they should), they should take it up with Duke.

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Does Duke have the ability to grant them an extra year of eligibility? What can Duke do for them, other than back them up in asking for more eligibility? Is this really going to be a huge incentive for schools to go around cancelling seasons figuring "no worries, the NCAA's got our back if we're wrong, LOL"?

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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Sevently, what's to prevent a school now from creating a false controversy, canceling a season, and applying for all team members to get an extra year of eligibility?

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Terrible PR?

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

How much of Duke's decision to cancel the season was based on pressure from the NCAA?

I'd bet that the NCAA went to Duke with two options - cancel your season or we will. Good for them for correcting this mistake. These kids were punished enough from that girl's lies, it's good to see them get something back.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

Thirty three people had their season cancelled for the possible actions of 3.

It seems like a no-brainer to me.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

What are they going to do for the 3 kids who were charged, I wonder?

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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The NCAA is retarded for granting this, and Duke is a giant gaywad for even asking for it. DUKE is the one that suspended the whole team based on speculative claims from a crack whore. ugh.

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Agreed

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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The NCAA is retarded for granting this, and Duke is a giant gaywad for even asking for it. DUKE is the one that suspended the whole team based on speculative claims from a crack whore. ugh.

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Agreed

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There's a long history of schools getting off easier if they punish themselves. When the NCAA has endorsed this many times in the past then they have to share the blame when a school tries it and is wrong.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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How much of Duke's decision to cancel the season was based on pressure from the NCAA?

I'd bet that the NCAA went to Duke with two options - cancel your season or we will. Good for them for correcting this mistake. These kids were punished enough from that girl's lies, it's good to see them get something back.

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That's just pure speculation, and if I'm one of the Duke kids, I hope to hell Duke lets the NCAA cancel it while they stand behind me.

Duke threw those kids under the bus, plain and simple. Those kids were vilified by a good percentage of the Duke faculty. When it slowly became evident that the DA was a retard, the prosecutor was tampering, and that the whore was FOS, those who vilified the kids tried to justify their slander by taking the "booze and sex is bad, mmmkay" stance. The whole thing was embarrassing.

Maybe this approach is fairest for the players, especially those not charged with anything. It still seems like Duke is getting off easy here.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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How much of Duke's decision to cancel the season was based on pressure from the NCAA?

I'd bet that the NCAA went to Duke with two options - cancel your season or we will. Good for them for correcting this mistake. These kids were punished enough from that girl's lies, it's good to see them get something back.

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That's just pure speculation, and if I'm one of the Duke kids, I hope to hell Duke lets the NCAA cancel it while they stand behind me.

Duke threw those kids under the bus, plain and simple. Those kids were vilified by a good percentage of the Duke faculty. When it slowly became evident that the DA was a retard, the prosecutor was tampering, and that the whore was FOS, those who vilified the kids tried to justify their slander by taking the "booze and sex is bad, mmmkay" stance. The whole thing was embarrassing.

Maybe this approach is fairest for the players, especially those not charged with anything. It still seems like Duke is getting off easy here.

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Agreed. I am an alum and the smarmy self-righteous e-mails I kept getting from the Duke president were sickening. DA Nifong gets the majority of the blame but the Duke community really over-reacted. Everyone wanted to be on the politically correct side of things and no one dared raise any questions.

The families of the 3 kids are probably going to sue Duke before all is said and done.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

How does this work if these guys graduated? Do they still have to take classes or can they get a job and play Duke Lacrosse?

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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How does this work if these guys graduated? Do they still have to take classes or can they get a job and play Duke Lacrosse?

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IIRC they have to take grad school classes.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

If I were the NCAA, I would have granted the kids special permission to transfer to another school and play a fifth year without sitting out a year, but I wouldn't have let them play an extra year at Duke. I think it is unfair to reward Duke for canceling its own season, but it would be good to rectify the situation for the kids that got screwed.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

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What are they going to do for the 3 kids who were charged, I wonder?

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Evans was a senior in '06. I don't think the '06 seniors were given a 5th year.

Seligmann and Finnerty were both Sophomores in '06. Seligmann announced this week he is going to play for Brown next year. Finnerty was invited back to Duke and is undecided. I believe both have 3 more years of eligibility.

Re: Duke Lacrosse players granted 5th year of eligiblity
 

Comments from D1 Lax coaches from various sources:

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-There is a part of you that says, 'Hey, good for [the players].' They were wronged. But there is a part of you that says, 'Hey, Duke University made a lot of mistakes' [in the aftermath of the allegations].

-This is going to affect a lot of things. It affects finances. If all [12.6] scholarships are given away, how do they come back? How does it work for the kids who were recruited and are coming in, thinking they've got an opportunity to play?

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Dave Pietramala, Johns Hopkins

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-I just think, on the surface, it just appears that the N.C.A.A. didn’t put any thought into this whatsoever. One of their prestigious institutions, that happens to be a player in a major sport, asked for something involving lacrosse, and they gave it to them.

-There's no chance the NCAA moves like this if its a basketball or football issue.

-The court of public opinion got to the point where in general the public, as they've gotten to know these kids said, 'hey these are pretty nice kids. I was rooting for Duke last weekend and remember saying afterward, well maybe we can stop talking about this now. The NCAA made this where now you can talk about this another couple years.

-I know that the coaches and players wanted an explanation, or an apology maybe, before they wanted the extra year back. In lieu of that, Duke stepped up and said, ‘Look what we’re doing for you.’ I don’t think anyone is being held accountable for what happened here.

-I'll be honest, I was looking forward to seeing Matt [Danowski] in a Chicago Machine jersey next year. Really, though, right now you have Duke potentially able to choose a team from five classes while the rest of us have four.

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Dom Starsia, Virginia

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-There’s a huge pink elephant here. What about [Former Duke head coach] Mike Pressler? What about Reade [Seligmann] and Collin [Finnerty]? Will their new schools be able to put in for the year? What about the competitive disadvantage that happens to a team that may now have to play against all these guys? The overriding factor for me is that I know this thing is just starting.”

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Bill Tierney, Princeton

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-Wow. I'm shocked, to be very honest with you, that they got it back, but that's based on little to no information about what information and criteria the NCAA based its decision on. It's not my place (to judge). But based on everything I've seen throughout my tenure as a coach, knowing the kind of decisions (the NCAA has) made in the past, the number of games Duke played and that their season was ended by the University and not the NCAA makes it more surprising.

-They're stacked (with seniors). If all those guys come back, they've got to be heavy favorites to be frontrunners for the national championship.

-I'm happy for the kids. Obviously those guys went through a lot. It seems a lot of it was unfair in terms of the reactions that were made — the sanctions that were made. In a way you have to feel like they've been through so much, at least give them another opportunity to relive what they missed out on as juniors.

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Jeff Tambroni, Cornell

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-I like the Duke kids and feel the pain they went through, but you have to understand I'm coming from a competitive situation. It's difficult to comprehend having to play against five classes of players rather than four.

-It was an overreaction on one side to stop the season, and it's an overreaction on the other side to give them another season after they already played [eight] games.


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Dave Cottle, Maryland


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-I'm happy for the young men, but I think it opens up a lot of new issues. It opens up Pandora's box.

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Charley Toomey, Loyola