With the recent news that the Memphis men's basketball team will have to forfeit wins from the 2007-2008 season due to issues regarding Derrick Rose's SAT score and free travel for a family member.
My real question is, who cares about the forfeited wins? Let's be honest for a second, this appears to be more of an NCAA "safe-face" strategy for a team that breaks the rules. Does the NCAA really believe that people are going to forget the wins that were accumulated during their Final Four run? When they told Michigan to take down the "Fab Five" banners did we all suddenly forget that they played those season? Nope.
On some level, the forfeiture of wins does not even help the NCAA because people will be critical of the removal of certain season from the record book committed due to infractions that were found after the fact.
One of the greatest coaches in college football, Joe Paterno when he heard Bobby Bowden was going to lose some of his wins due to NCAA violations said that even he would prefer to see Bowden keep those wins. There is probably the same sentiment felt by other coaches for Memphis coach John Calipari.
At best, Memphis should probably be held accountable and face violations for upcoming seasons in it's scholarship count along with sanctions by the NCAA. However, the past has already happened and taking those wins away does no one any good.
Does forfeiting wins help anyone?
