The NCAA's methods of punishing can be unfair to the players

The Toledo basketball program has had their issues the past few years.

It started with the obvious -- the sports betting scandal that centered about Sammy Villegas and the games he fixed back in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006. That news broke in 2008, which completely obliterated a program that had reached the NIT in 2007.

In the last three season, Toledo has won a grand total of 15 games. Its tough to win when you face the kind of roster turnover they have. Toledo listed 17 players on their roster in 2010-11. Eight were freshmen and five were sophomores. Three of the upper classmen listed had transferred into the program. 2010-2011 was the first for Tod Kowalczyk, as he was the third head coach at Toledo since the news of the betting scandal broke.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Because late last week, Hayden Humes, a redshirt freshman on the Toledo team, was forced to transfer out of the program. It wasn't because of anything that he did, mind you. Rather, the program was such a mess before he arrived that there is no longer an available scholarship.

You see, during the past four seasons, the Rockets have had an atrocious APR. For the second year in a row, they failed to reach the 925 standard set. Their latest score as 858, which is an average of the four season from 2006-2007 to 2009-2010. And even though a press release said that Toledo's numbers in the 2010-2011 season should be above the national average of 940, since the Rockets averaged an abysmal 838 between 2007-2008 and 2009-2010, they will not be able to reach the cut off of 925 again.

This is the second year in a row that Toledo will have an unacceptable APR, meaning that they were docked three scholarships. Since there was not any space available for Humes, he opted to transfer out of the school instead of paying his own way.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to the way the NCAA punishes people.

Generally speaking, their penalties are fairly meaningless and usually far too light to create any kind of relevant repercussions. The worst part, however, is that the people that bear their brunt of these punishments are usually people that took no part in actually committing the violations. Remember USC two years back? Then-athletic director Mike Garrett barred a suddenly-surging Trojans basketball team from the postseason during the middle of the season in an effort to spare the football team a more serious punishment.

I understand the argument that Humes knew what was going on at Toledo when he decided to enroll there. But that doesn't make the result any more fair.

The NCAA shouldn't be forcing kids to pay the price for the academic struggles of the basketball program three and four years ago.