BYU suspended starting forward Brandon Davies for the remainder of the season for violating the school’s honor code yesterday.

In case you’re wondering what BYU’s honor code is, it’s this.  It requires students to live a chaste and virtuous life, be honest, abstain from alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee and substance abuse, and attend church regularly.  In other words, no smoking weed, drinking copious amounts of booze and coffee (coffee?) and screwing chicks.

Let me take the time to note how honorable (no pun intended) it was to see BYU do this.  It’s refreshing to see a school stick to its academic integrity in enforcing its rules regardless of the ramifications of its Top-5 basketball team.  BYU did what most schools (especially SEC schools) would not do, even though it will hurt on the basketball court.

And it will.  This move is nothing short of devastating.  Davies is a 6-foot-9 sophomore who was a major contributor to the Cougars.  He also added averaged 11.1 points and a team-leading 6.2 rebounds per game.  The Cougars are going to miss his production, and it may hurt their chances at a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Then again, as a wise woman once said: “integrity is what you do when no one is watching”.  BYU could have easily swept this under the rug, and probably no one would have noticed.

Props to BYU.

Categories: college basketball, sports story