BYU rules strict, but Davies knew that

A reporter friend was traveling through the back roads of Wyoming on Wednesday when he offered this question:

Do you think they would have done the same thing to Jimmer Fredette?

My answer: I would hope so.

My best hunch: I have no idea.

I know Brigham Young has this way of making us feel uncomfortable, which says something about our own insecurities.

It became cliche long ago for others to mock BYU and its religious beliefs and university rules, a typical defense mechanism for those unwilling to accept or understand what is foreign to them. We make fun. We crack jokes. We feel better about ourselves.

BYU moves forward, unremitting in its conviction, an institution that those on the outside seem to care a heck of a lot more about than BYU does of them.

Brandon Davies is gone from the BYU basketball team for the remainder of the season, and one can presume his violation of the school's honor code was significant in nature.

They didn't dismiss the starting forward and seriously damage hopes for a Final Four run and potential No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament because Davies wore flip-flops or was seen sipping a latte in a bathroom stall at Starbucks or was caught watching an episode of "Big Love" or any of the other attempts at humor spread across the Internet the past 48 hours.

This was in the eyes of the school and church a serious transgression, and reports Wednesday night out of Salt Lake City said Davies admitted to having sex with his girlfriend.

Think what you want about the honor code, created in 1940 as a disciplinary measure against cheating and expanded years later to include rules regarding chastity and dress and grooming and drugs and alcohol.

It has its flaws, as much a separate entity from the university as something so influential could be. It certainly hasn't appeared over the years to be a bastion of due process.

I couldn't follow it. I'd be out faster than Cosmo Kramer in a certain contest.

Davies, however, knew the rules. This is on him. It doesn't matter that his violation was not of a criminal nature. If you don't like or can't follow the code -- no matter how unfair or archaic you think it is -- don't sign the paper. Go somewhere else.

It's too bad. Davies is a black kid adopted as an infant by a single white mother and raised in Provo, Utah, with adopted siblings from India. He played at Provo High School and chose to stay home for college rather than attend California or Gonzaga or Utah or Utah State. His has been an inspiring journey.

BYU also kicked out one of the best football players in school history last year (Harvey Unga). Would a nationally prominent white player such as Fredette be treated the same? Maybe not. Does race play a part in how premier athletes at BYU are disciplined? It could. Do certain athletes receive preferential treatment? Yes, at every level.

But it's wrong to definitively label BYU as such because it's impossible for those not intimately involved to prove. It's conjecture, suspicion, more secondhand assumptions than facts.

I guarantee white students and athletes have been dismissed for honor code violations that the public would never know or care about given their sport or name isn't considered newsworthy on any level.

This isn't arguable: BYU's magical basketball season is worse off with the loss of Davies, a sophomore averaging 11.1 points and a team-best 6.2 rebounds. No one in Provo is doing cartwheels over this, beginning with those who made the decision to remove him.

Do you know how much a Final Four appearance would mean to BYU financially and in terms of national prestige?

"There are programs out there upholding their rules and not looking the other way like so many people believe," said Mike DeCourcy, national college basketball writer for The Sporting News. "Look at Kansas with Tyshawn Taylor (reinstated from his suspension Wednesday) and Michigan State with Korie Lucious. North Carolina and Will Graves. I think it's more common than people want to think.

"I don't know what Brandon did. But there are no surprises (at BYU). You know the deal going in."

DeCourcy thought the BYU-without-Davies situation could be the toughest seeding challenge for any tournament selection committee in history, but that was before the Cougars were whipped by New Mexico 82-64 on Wednesday night in Provo. Now, the No. 1 seed is like Davies -- long gone.

What was the highest of highs for Brigham Young in beating the Aztecs on Saturday suddenly became a low that no one, not even the Cougars, saw coming.

BYU is a different place with different rules. I don't understand many of them and couldn't follow most. Think what you want about it, about the school and honor code and how unfairly some violations might be handled when compared to others.

But don't forget who's to blame in this instance. Brandon Davies, more than anyone else given his local ties, knew the drill.

This is on him.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday and Thursday on "Monsters of the Midday," Fox Sports Radio 920 AM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.