The NCAA grind

For nearly two years Southeast Missouri State University has been dealing with official probes into alleged wrongdoing in the women's basketball program. Now it appears the NCAA process won't be concluded for several more months. To Southeast officials, that's too long.

The NCAA has raised the stakes considerably by suggesting that the team's wins during B.J. Smith's four years as coach should be vacated, including the 2006 appearance in the NCAA tournament. That would go far beyond the sanctions adopted by the university after preliminary findings in 2006.

At the heart of the argument that the NCAA is taking an extreme view of Southeast's violations is the fact that other schools have had similar or worse infractions but were not forced to vacate their records.

Meanwhile, it's important to remember that the women's basketball program, under a new coach and with different players, is not the same program that has been under review since Dobbins first asked for an official inquiry from the Ohio Valley Conference in January 2006. But the cloud of the continuing NCAA process is hanging over the university's athletic department whether anyone likes that connection or not.

The NCAA has shown what a cumbersome bureaucracy it is. Which means that as much as the university would like to expedite a final resolution, the process will grind on with little positive effect.