Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Tim Davis, Jamey Hansen, Tim Frerking, Chris Mende and Keesia Wirt.

Is Iowa State University men’s basketball coach Tim Floyd a stickler for the rules or what? Recently, Floyd announced the suspension of basketball players Dedric Willoughby and Shawn Bankhead for their first game of the 1996-97 basketball season.

Willoughby and Bankhead were both suspended for skipping classes this summer to play basketball. This is in addition to Kelvin Cato’s suspension in April for missing classes. The loss of these players will definitely hurt the Cyclones’ for that game, a fact of which both Floyd and the team are most assuredly painfully aware. But what hurts them today will help them tomorrow.

It is important that students, especially those who have much to lose, remember the importance of academics. We applaud Floyd’s actions as ones which work to that goal.

A one-game suspension for one game does appear rather strict, but it is also important to set an example and curb behavior which could become even more detrimental to the ISU team this fall.

Floyd has said that for each class skipped to play a game, an additional one-game suspension will be added. This disciplinary system will, as Floyd has said, lend itself to creating a better basketball program at ISU through the years.

If only such an ethic or consequence could be applied to all students to increase productivity.

To the Daily editorial board, this is self evident. After all, the original meeting where this topic was to be discussed had to be rescheduled due to lack of attendance.