Looks like the 3 players are suspended from playing indefinitely.
"Bruins coach Steve Alford has said LiAngelo and his two teammates involved in the incident — Jalen Hill and Cody Riley — will have to “earn their way back” on the team while the school is reviewing the embarrassing incident that led President Donald Trump to intervene. "
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2017/11/16/lavar-balls-master-nba-plan-takes-hit-liangelo-ball-suspension/869594001/
If they have an opportunity to “earn their way back” the university has not gone far enough. They should be off the team, period, full stop. Best case, they are looking at NCAA rules for revocation of scholarships and consulting with their attorneys. But probably they are trying to find a way to get these athletes back on the team. Disappointing.
The players have rights under NCAA rules and under PAC 12 rules. They can agree to forfeit their scholarships, but that is unlikely. If they don’t agree, then they are entitled to a hearing before the scholarships (actually a grant in aid) can be withdrawn, suspended, or reduced (but these are basketball scholarships so can’t be reduced). The grants can be revoked for disciplinary reasons, but the player is still entitled to a hearing and, in necessary, an appeal. Honestly, the school doesn’t care about the scholarship at this point. These scholarships were given out to these players, so are no good to the team if they are cancelled.
I think it is most likely they will be suspended for at least the rest of 2017. There is the possibility of them taking redshirt years but for basketball that doesn’t have the same benefits as it does in other sports since they can go pro any time after the first year.
The NCAA could prevent them from transferring to any other schools this year (and I think it will).
“Stupid” is because they even thought of doing it and then went ahead with it. It’s been proven that teens are far more risky and their brains just haven’t developed quite enough. I give a teen much more of a pass than someone older. Doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be consequences, but less severe than a mature adult. Hanging them out to dry for an immature “mistake”, i.e. Mistake in good judgement, is too harsh.
I would kick them off the team, and forbid them to play any athletics. Take away any athletic scholarships. They can stay at the university.
@conmama I’m still stuck on this. Sorry if I’m annoying anyone. These kids are in the limelight right now. Other kids look up to them. I’m not looking for a pound of flesh. I’m looking for a straight out declaration that stealing is wrong.
It doesn’t matter if you get caught or not, it’s still wrong. I want them to turn this around and try to set a better example. I didn’t hear them say that. I heard them say “mistake” and “stupid”. Even your comments (and I’m not trying to pick on you, really), that talk about risk and a mistake in judgement, to me that implies weighing whether you will get caught and what the consequences of the behavior is. Sorry if I’m beating a dead horse to death.
I don’t believe that you turn into someone else when you are in a different gps location, so it’s likely to me that this is how they behaved at home.
Why do people keep referring to these young men as “kids”? They are young adults. They made a conscious choice to steal. They disrespected their parents, their school, their country and the laws of a country which had welcomed them as a guest. I feel they should be stripped of any athletic scholarships and they should not be allowed to make up any class assignments they missed because of their shenanigans. And this last punishment comes from what I believe my dear departed mother would say. Keep them on the basketball team, but don’t allow them to play and make them wear their stolen sunglasses as they warm the bench.
I also feel some restitution should be made to all the people and agencies who incurred added expenses because of the poor judgment of these young men. But, really, I’m sure these students don’t have the money and their parents shouldn’t be held responsible because the young men are of legal age. But it would be fitting to see future wages garnished because of their exploits.
The statement from UCLA about the “indefinite” suspension from the team superficially sounds like tough punishment, but it also contains some weasel-wording that allows for them to be reinstated after some vague sort of rehabilitation. Given how athletes are pampered at big sports schools like UCLA, it wouldn’t surprise me if that ended up being a pretty short suspension, especially once the glare of the public spotlight has died down. The sports columnist in the LA Times was outraged that UCLA didn’t flat out suspend them from the team for the entire year.
If it were up to me I would not only have suspended them from the team for the entire year, I would have suspended them from SCHOOL for the entire year.
I think the fact that they stole items from three different stores, makes it less of a stupid mistake and more of a pre-meditated crime.
That’s a huge penalty. Mr. Ball’s parents could certainly afford the tuition (although I’m not sure he’d go to school if he couldn’t play basketball) but I’m not sure if the other two could afford to stay in school if they have to pay their own way.
I don’t think the school wants to expel them. They’ve said they cannot play basketball until the coach decides to let them rejoin the team. They’ll still have to go to practice and do other activities. For them, not being able to play is the biggest punishment they can receive from the school (I think Chinese prison would have been worse but I’m not sure they feel that way; they want to play basketball).
UCLA can only prevent them from playing basketball at another school THIS year by not releasing them from their NLI. After this year, they could go to another school, and might still have to sit out a year (so if they are going to do that, they’d transfer NOW), but UCLA can’t prevent them from playing at other schools. I think they will be allowed back on the team in Jan (new quarter).
Or "suspended indefinitely " means “until the media spotlight fades”.
^^For the Duke player who kept tripping other players last year, it meant 1 game.
I think they’ll be out through the end of the year, but to have 3 players who were supposed to play immediately as freshmen out, that’s a big hunk on the team sitting out. UCLA did win the game in China without them…
“less of a stupid mistake and more of a pre-meditated crime”
To me, these things may both be true. People can make moral mistakes just as they can make intellectual mistakes. It’s a moral mistake if you fail to consider that shoplifting sunglasses is stealing in the same sense that taking sunglasses out of someone’s purse would be stealing. It’s a moral mistake to think that looking tough in front of your friends is more important than your integrity. You might come to realize your error in retrospect. I hope.
I think calling it a “mistake” trivializes the wrongdoing. When one makes a mistake on an exam, it’s because one doesn’t know the correct answer; e.g., “Oh wow! I thought Charlegmagne died in 385 A.D.” I cannot think of an example of an intellectual mistake one make while knowing the right answer at the time of the mistake. With misspeaking, Spoonerisms, temporary lapses, one knows the “right answer,” but not at the instant of the mistake.
Is it being suggested that the players had a temporary lapse, and believed that shoplifting was actually okay at the time they did it? Or they thought that property is all held in common in a Communist country, so they could take what they wanted/needed? Probably not.
The fact that the UCLA men apparently shoplifted in 3 stores compounds my assessment that this was not a “mistake.”
Did you all see LaVar Ball’s comments!!! According to an article on msn: “They try to make a big deal out of nothing sometimes. I’m from LA, I’ve seen a lot worse than some guy taking some glasses.”
Well, if your parents think stealing is no big deal, then no wonder why the kid did it. This totally fits in with my earlier comments that I never heard any of the kids acknowledge that stealing is wrong. Since the parents aren’t sending the message that this is very wrong, I really hope that UCLA will. And that it will be done in a way that will be honest, and about teaching the kids. It would be oh so easy for UCLA to send the message that since the kids got caught it embarrassed UCLA. It’s not about getting caught and it’s not about embarrassment, it’s about the underlying act of stealing is wrong.
Lavar is a piece of work. Smdh
How much development you need to know not to steal? Don’t they know that already in kindergarten? You can’t chuck this to “still developing brain”.
^Morevoer, if those brains are so under-developed, they don’t deserve to play on UCLA’s team. Head to a community college where they can ‘develop’ some more brain cells.
@Iglooo and @bluebayou, it’s hard for this kid to develop brain cells to learn not to steal when his own father says stealing is no big deal. I hope one of the coaches takes the kid under his wing and teaches him some decent values since his father obviously didn’t. This all can be turned into a saving moment for these kids. Let’s hope UCLA doesn’t blow it by treating this as no big deal.
@melvin123 He is a d*ck. No argument there. But isn’t UCLA thinking the same although they keep their trap shut? Why else would they announce an indefinite suspension instead of a definite year long suspension? Had they announced a year long suspension at the outset, would LaVal be emboldened to say anything like that? While we focus on LaVal, the joke is on us.