District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan excluded testimony from Dr. David Rascher on the economics of big time college basketball because he concluded that it was not relevant to the central question in the case of whether the “Victim Universities” were defrauded because the defendants paid top athletes in violation of NCAA rules, thus rendering them ineligible for scholarships. There were numerous affidavits from university officials stating they would not have offered a scholarship to an ineligible athlete. Rascher’s testimony was central to the defense’s argument that colleges looked the other way on these violations because the benefits of gaining a ... Log in to view full article.