I would also add that entire season has to be somewhat troublesome for the NCAA. You had Mayo and Rose and all their nonsense, there are still strong rumors about Beasley getting cash to go to K State that have never gone anywhere. Eric Gordon went to IU because Sampson hired 2 coaches close to him, that year was REALLY bad for shady actions by college teams.
Then you have an NC game where memphis used one and possibly 2 ineligible players (Dozier) and it's still not clear that Kansas didn't use an ineligible player in ARthur. I know the official Texas HS investigation cleared Arthur and said they found no evidence of wrongdoing but all you have to do is ask the math teacher involved and he'll tell you that the grades on Arthur's transcripts were not the grades he gave him. Below is a cut and paste from station WFAA Channel 8 in Dallas done by Brett Shipp in May of 2008.
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"Former South Oak Cliff math teacher Winford Ashmore said Arthur had a history of trouble in math. He showed us his 2002 grade book for freshman math in which Arthur was making weekly failing grades: 45, 25 and 24.
Ashmore said then-principal Donald Moten, and current head basketball coach James Mays Jr., both asked him to bypass the rules and award Arthur a passing grade.
"Darrell was still failing, and was not making much of an effort in class, and was not coming to tutoring,” Ashmore said. “So at that point I ensured Moten — as well as James Mays Jr. — that Darrell Arthur was going to get an F for the six weeks."
Days later, without teacher approval, Arthur was dropped from Ashmore's class. And despite those low grades, transcripts reflect Arthur received a passing grade of 70.
In the Spring of 2003, school records show Arthur failed math again with a 64. But those records also show that in January of 2005 — two years later — Principal Moten signed off on changing that failing grade to a passing grade of 72.
The reason given for the grade change, according to records: "Teacher bubbled (the grade) incorrectly."
But district policy states: "Errors in student grades must be corrected within ten days after the grading period ends."
Principal Donald Moten is no longer with the Dallas ISD. He resigned following the News 8 — and subsequent internal DISD — investigation into grade-changing during the 2006 championship season.
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As you can see there were at least 2 instances where Arthur's final grade in a class were changed. one without explanation, one in violation of district policy. And the Principal responsible for the grade changes quit when the district investigated grade changing with the 2006 team that also won state. That team had to forfeit their wins due to the grade changing. Then the Arthur case came up from the year BEFORE.
I suspect the difference is the NCAA believes Kansas didn't know Arthur was ineligible, and they feel Memphis did know about Rose. But I think ultimately the difference is the Texas HS folks cleared Arthur without ever bothering to explain why they were allowed to vioalate district rules in changing his grades. In fact last time I heard not only had they not explained how they ruled nothing wrong happened, they were actually pursuing disciplinary actions against the math teacher for disclosing Arthur's grades to the media which violated privacy rules. Yes he violated rules but he did it because he knew the grades had been changed, he did it to expose a problem at the school.
I think the best team won it on the court that year and any other questions are just impossible to answer.
