What if the NCAA told him privately about the 3 year show cause right before the firing?
I'm positive that the NCAA DID let the administration know what was coming. They may not have implicitly said that it would be a 3-year show cause, but there was nothing else that happened that could've changed the administration's mind from when they expressed unequivocal support for Pearl in September and when Hamilton made his Sports Animal appearance in March. Even if we accept at face value the administration's claim that the "bump" played a role in their decision, they knew about that violation well before they reiterated their support for Pearl as recently as January or February.
The problem is that Cheek (and Hamilton, but mostly Cheek since Hamilton was little more than a puppet by the time the ball really started rolling) wasn't man enough to face up to the job he needed to do, as Revolver said. As far as I'm concerned, Cheek isn't to be blamed for firing Pearl; the NCAA made that inevitable. But when you put out a vaguely worded statement knowing that the media will take it the wrong way and assume the head coach is guilty of additional wrongdoing, and then the media does take it the wrong way and report that the head coach is guilty of additional wrongdoing, and you don't bother to correct them...how's that any different than just flat-out lying?
