NCAA Repeals Rule on Scholarship Limits

The NCAA Division I Management Council voted unanimously Monday to repeal a rule on scholarship limits in basketball and replace it with one that rewards teams for overall academic performance.

The current rule allows schools to offer five scholarships in one year or eight in two years, but it penalizes schools, no matter how well they’ve done historically, by not allowing them to replace scholarship players who become academically ineligible, NCAA President Myles Brand said.

One of the proposals the Management Council will present to the NCAA Board of Directors later this month will set a team threshold for triggering a penalty, such as the loss of a scholarship.

The exact numbers would be determined later.

“If you have a very high performing academic team that graduated almost everyone, that team’s not going to be affected,” Brand said after the first of two days of meetings. “But if it turns out they haven’t had a good graduation rate, and we haven’t set that number yet, then that school will be affected.

“So there is some reward, some incentive, if you like. It gives you a little leeway.”

The proposals must be approved by the board of directors before they can be put into effect. If approved, they would track graduation rates and academic progress of athletes and apply increasingly harsher penalties for the worst offenders.

Jurisprudence

The jury in retired basketball All-Star Jayson Williams’ manslaughter trial in Somerset County, N.J., returned to the courtroom for the first time in nearly three weeks.

Williams, 36, is accused of recklessly handling a shotgun in the bedroom of his 40-room mansion in Alexandria Township, N.J., causing it to discharge and kill chauffeur Costas “Gus” Christofi. He also is accused of trying to make the death look like a suicide.

Testimony in the trial was suspended April 1, the day after the defense rested its case, when prosecutors discovered notes and photos taken by Larry Nelson, the chief engineer of shotgun maker Browning Arms Co., had not been given to the defense.

Because of the violation, the defense asked for the case against Williams to be dismissed, but the judge rejected the request.

Miscellany

UCLA shot 20-over-par 308 in the first round of the Pacific 10 Women’s Golf Championships at Saticoy Country Club in Somis and has a one-shot lead over Washington. Stanford is third with 310 and USC is tied for fourth with Arizona State and California at 312.

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Six-time All-American Jeanette Antolin of UCLA was selected as one of four finalists for the Honda Award in gymnastics. The award recognizes the top female athlete in each of 11 sports.

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Georgia linebacker Tony Taylor will sit out his junior season after tearing a ligament in his right knee during an intrasquad game Saturday.

He will have surgery in early May.

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Arkansas extended by a year the contract of men’s basketball Coach Stan Heath.

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The 40th Congressional Cup, the only American stop of the Swedish Match Tour, will be staged by the Long Beach Yacht Club today through Saturday. Information: (562) 598-9401.