Illinois AD knew of Rose SAT score?

This issue of Derrick Rose and his allegedly fraudulent SAT score continues to get a little more murky. In an article from the Chicago Sun-Times, University of Illinois athletic director Ron Guenther claims to have known what was going on with Derrick Rose all along. Here’s Guenther’s quote:

“We understood what was going on (with Rose) all along,” Guenther told the Champaign News-Gazette. “The sport of men’s basketball has issues that the NCAA has been trying to address. There are many tentacles to the problem, so there is no magic bullet to solve it. It has been a focal point for discussions in this conference for more than 10 years. We’ve had task forces looking into the AAU, the shoe money, the agent.”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE FROM THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

The article doesn’t explain much more, instead it simply implies the University of Illinois knew exactly what Rose was doing while in high school. Why is Illinois relevant to the Rose issue? The Illini were in Rose’s final list of schools where he would possibly commit. Rose eventually chose Memphis.

Assuming Guenther’s statement is true and the University of Illinois knew what was going on with Rose, several questions come to mind. What information about Rose did Illinois have that other schools did not? How did Illinois find out the information? If Illinois knew what Rose was doing, why did they not back off recruiting him? There are others, but I’ll leave it at that.

Illinois AD Ron Guenther

Memphis rode Rose to the NCAA Championship game and a school record 38 victories. If it is proven that Rose was ineligible, then Memphis will most likely get stripped of their wins and Final Four banner. They could survive that if the NCAA rules the school had no knowledge of Rose’s activities, but what happens if another school knew about Rose prior to him attending Memphis? I would suspect the NCAA would take the position, if one school knows, then it is highly likely other schools did as well. And just for the record, while I generally believe the NCAA gets most things wrong, that would not be an unjustified position for them to take.

What happens then is much more serious and has far reaching ramifications. Not only will Memphis get worked over for knowing about Rose’s situation, but John Calipari, now coach of the University of Kentucky, will as well. And if you don’t think penalties can follow a coach to a new school, just ask Kelvin Sampson and Indiana University.

My point is, the Illinois AD just simply made the statement they knew what Rose was up to, yet he did not provide any additional detail regarding how they knew or when they knew. I’m not blaming the guy for commenting since it appears he was asked the question. However, if you are going to make a statement which essentially implies the school that took Rose, the University of Memphis, also knew and did nothing about it, then you better provide some substance to back that up.

Again, it is not a matter of him commenting on the situation involving another school, but it is a matter of him not providing additional detail. Guenther made the above statement with an implication that it was almost common knowledge of Rose’s activities. If what Guenther says is true, then it is a huge deal. I just hope Guenther either clarifies his statement or expands on it because if he does not, then he essentially just walked by a hallway that did not involve him, threw a grenade down it, then kept on walking.