Beverley's Claim the Latest Black Eye for Hog Basketball

If only the University of Arkansas was as open about Patrick Beverley's academic record as Mr. Beverley has been about it, then we'd better understand how deep in the muck this Razorback basketball program truly is.

Patrick Beverley, interviewed by a site that is following the upcoming NBA Draft and the likely selections, readily claims now that not only did he turn in a class paper written by someone else at the UA, he took the fall for other teammates who did the same thing.

Recall the steps by which we've gotten to this admission:

—Arkansas announced in the middle of last summer that Patrick Beverley was ineligible for basketball for a year, saying that he had suspended from the university, then was unwilling to explain the situation further, citing as usual the handy, good-ol' student privacy laws (a Congressional act, the Family Rights and Privacy Act, signed into law in the Vietnam-era draft years to protect college students from government intrusion into their academic record; in recent years, athletic departments including the UA's have also leaned on HIPPA to not disclose complete information on player injuries).

—Patrick Beverley told FoxSports.com last summer that what he had done was an NCAA violation but not an academic problem. Beverley apparently meant he was not flunking out when the UA suspended him. He was just cheating. They kick every Joe College out of school for at least a year for that.

—Beverley soon moved away from the "NCAA violation" explanation in another interview to say that his problem involved a class paper. The UA again kept quiet on the matter.

—Beverley now comes even cleaner with the allegation that he and other teammates benefited from work by class-paper writers. The UA, which in essence has been accused by a former player of having academic papers written for several players, stays zipped on the matter again, even though Beverley is no longer a student.

Here's betting that while the UA isn't telling the public anything, someone at the university has made quick effort to reach Beverley and suggest a zip-it strategy from here on. There's no telling what Patrick Beverley might tell about his time at the university, his studies, even his recruiting by the Stan Heath staff, if given the chance in the right setting.

As for now, Arkansas' basketball program has a black eye that only appears to be worsening. As Chris Bahn writes in this month's print issue, 15 players have left the program in various forms (exhausted eligibility, transferred, quit, ruled ineligible) since John Pelphrey arrived.