On Wednesday, it was announced that Brandon Davies would be suspended from the BYU basketball team for the remainder of the basketball season after breaking the school’s honor code. It is still under review if Davies will be allowed to stay enrolled at the university. When the story originally broke, it was not announced what Davies had done to warrant the suspension. Just that he did not commit a crime of any kind. However, right before the Cougars’ game against the University of New Mexico, it was confirmed that Davies had premarital sex with his girlfriend which led to his dismissal.
The suspension could not come at a worse time for the BYU basketball team. At the time of the suspension, the Cougars were ranked number three in the country. The team is currently having one of its best seasons in school history. Not to mention, they were aiming for a number one seed in this month’s NCAA tourney. To say that the suspension will drastically decrease the team’s chances at postseason success is an understatement.
While Davies is not as critical a player as Jimmer Fredette, he is the by far the team’s best back to the basket scorer. Not to mention, the team was not considered a terribly deep team with Davies in the lineup. The suspension could be even more drastic than originally thought. Hours after the announcement, the Cougars lost their game to the University of New Mexico by 18 points.
We are not talking about a basketball program like Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky or Michigan State. This is BYU. The Cougars have this good of a basketball team about once every 100 years. It’s not like they can just brush it off and hope for obtaining the same achievements next season. So, from a basketball fan’s point of view, this suspension stinks to high heaven. Especially when you consider that Davies was suspended for something that hundreds of college students do everyday.
Now, for a second if we can stop thinking about the impact this will have on BYU’s once in a lifetime basketball season, the decision shows a lot of integrity. Not to mention, the suspension is very much refreshing in today’s NCAA with all of the bending of rules, illegal gifts and dirty recruiting. Recently, big named college athletes and coaches have been in the news for conducting business in a shady way. We have seen violation stories involving: Cam Newton, Bruce Pearl, John Calipari and Reggie Bush. These big profile names were accused and/or convicted of huge NCAA violations. I wonder how some the big names and universities would adhere to a simple university honor code?
It was encouraging to see that BYU showed everyone their honor code actually means something. While BYU is certainly never going to have the athletic success that the higher profile schools will, at least they can go to sleep at night knowing they did things by the book. While the suspension is going to tarnish a once in a lifetime season, it will hopefully set the precedent for a lifetime of lessons in the future.
Joshua Sexton is a lifelong basketball fanatic, who watches as many games as possible. In addition, He has played and coached the game at the high school level. He has recently started writing about the game of basketball.
