At 09:01 AM 1/16/97 -0500, Kevin C. Tompkins wrote: >I guess I am amongst the confused on this issue. If the rule is cut and >dry then why would Maine not be penalized for scheduling one too many games >for this season ?? What would the penalty be - no postseason play??? I >am assuming that they only allowed this to happen because they knew they >would most likely be ineligible anyways. But, why take that risk if the >appeal has any hope at all?? Apparently the rule is not cut-and-dry. Mike cited specific rules involving exemptions, but they don't, at least what I got out of them, don't say exactly that you must exempt every single game from your conference and NCAA tournament. It does mention them, but it is not specific. Thus the confusion on our part. >I guess I don't see why next season is affected at all. If you play too >many games in one season, then you get punished then. Or is the punishment >different in the situation where the team is ineligible, like Maine is, in that >current season - so they simply impose a different penalty in the following >season. The reason why next year is involved is because Maine already scheduled 35 games (NCAA allows 34, Maine used an exemption to play Dalhousie) when they filed their appeal in the fall. The NCAA recognized that Maine would have to drop a game from its current schedule and thus allowed Maine to take the exemption aspect of their penalty next season. So next year Maine must schedule more carefully. The debate is whether or not postseason play counts as 2 or 9 games, a huge difference. Unless the appeal is sucessful, Maine will not be able to play 34 regular season games next year to be eligible for postseason. >I agree with Deron, though as to how this could have happened. When are >the Maine administrators going to wake up and smell the coffee??? I suppose >this is somehow a Shawn Walsh screw-up! ;-) I'll be looking for Scruggs or McLaughlin to have a column on this soon! :-) Don't come down on the administration yet, because perhaps they know something we don't. I'm checking with Suzanne Tyler, and I know other list members are talking with other UMaine adminstration and support staff. We'll get an answer! --- Deron Treadwell ([log in to unmask])