and this is just my opinion but based on close observation over many decades now:

1. The NCAA is an Association of Members with legal authority to only the extent it has memebrship superiority. Everyone seems to assume that the NCAA is some quasi legal body endowed by either congrss or God with inalienable rights of mastry over state and private institutions that (GASP) are actually controlled bodies owned and operated for a lot of reasons that do not include intercollegiate athletics. College sports may make us aware at the forefront of various universities. But sports are not the main reason colleges exist, and certaily in the sports world at best goverened only to that extent by an association of volunteer membership.

2. So consider the real legal challanges that are posed by state owned or well endowed private institutions when it comes to messing with their revenue sports. You aren't just sanctioning the University of Arizona or Memphis or Boston College or UCLA. When the NCAA, an association, takes on UCLA, it is taking on the State of California as well. We have seen the NCAA seemingly grow weaker over the last two decades. It has especially backed away from control over college football to a great extent, but still useful for a variety of tax and liability reasons that keep the FBS together. The useful nature of its afforded membership tax breaks (and they are many) is why the P5's have not seriously threatened to pull away as I discussed in a thread a week or so ago.

3. But sanction of athletes and programs that significantly cut either revenye events (such as cacellation of season, termination of bowl elegibility or reduction in elegibility) are very serious legal matters cutting across financial interests. NCAA sanctions can cause financial damages to entities not responsible for the failures of prior coaches or players. That cuts against the real legal grain in real courts of law.

Sumary - Two decades ago, none of the members really challanged the NCAA much on such matters. They agreed to sanctions and took their lumps. But the larger the TV revenue got, the more important weekly exposure became, the more important national recruiting became for specific types of programs, the more likely a school was going to put up some real legal fight with teeth if it felt the NCAA was wrong or going overboard. Players were gretting punished for crimes committed by others. OTHER programs were getting punished by loss of revenue to one of the only two programs that really make money at many schools. The NCAA has and had a serious legal problems when levying severe sanctions in Football and/or basketball.

Look at North Carolina. The Taheels had its serious cheating and GPA fraud dating back a decade. Had the same been discovered in 1995, it would have faced 2-3 years of probation and it's BB program issued an enormous blow. Its FB program would have probably also been sanctioned. Move forward 15 years and it hardly gets a slap on the wrist for some of the most egregious violations in NCAA history.

Why?

I think it's because the Tarheels are well heeled legally and the State's flagship institution. As such, UNC would have been more than willing to take the NCAA to court on behalf of its taxpayers (a very deeply endowed pocket). The NCAA picks and choses its fights based upon who the states (mainly state institutions) will pony up cash for a defense. Example, MTSU if were caught cheating it would still pay a stiff price. It makes no real money in college athletics, if anything is heavly subsidized to break eaven much like all the Utah colleges and universities. Tennessee however given the same circumstances might not e assessed serious penalties these days beyond a tersely worded letter and should we still keep you on our Christmas Card List? Its as simple as that.

So my advice in all this is to look at where the real power lies. The NCAA fights and sanctions when it believes THE WILL/POWERl to fight back is just not there. But when an institution, especially a state or public instituion steps up with the financial backing of donors or tax funded legal teams, the NCAA guards it's cash carefully and walks away a lot of the times. Because of that, you will continue to see very unjust results based on who's being charged. The Gotti's of College Athletics are often too protected by their own powerful owners, and that cannot be good for equity in the long run. The low totum fenceman will always go down and do jail time.