NCAA hits SMU basketball with postseason ban, scholarship losses, suspends

The basketball team’s famous coach, Larry Brown, will also be suspended for 30 percent of the upcoming season, according to an announcement by the college sports governing authority.

The head men’s basketball coach (Brown) failed to report the incident of fraudulent academic credit after it had been brought to his attention, and he initially lied about the underlying violations when interviewed by the enforcement staff.

Brown didn’t have anything to do with the fraud, but is being punished for failing to “promote an atmosphere of compliance within his program”, the NCAA said.

The root of the NCAA’s investigation was whether former assistant Ulric Maligi and another person connected to SMU’s program helped former McDonald’s All-American Keith Frazierwith coursework.

However, according to the report, Brown learned of the misconduct in 2014 and didn’t report it to anyone for more than a month.

The NCAA noted that Brown, who previously coached at Kansas University and UCLA and left NCAA penalties in his wake, made “choices against his better judgment when it came to compliance issues” at SMU.

SMU stated it will review “the full report to determine if the University will appeal any findings and/or penalties”.

The NCAA changed its rules in 2013, determining that coaches would be presumed to have knowledge of what is going on within their program unless they could rebut that argument. The golf program at SMU will also lose scholarships.

The NCAA did not specify which players were a focus of the investigation, but ESPN’s sources report that it is in fact Frazier, who averaged 10.5 points his freshman season. NCAA-champion golfer Bryson DeChambeau will be unable to defend his title as a senior next spring.

“I’m really disappointed in what happened to our kids”, Brown said at Tuesday afternoon press conference. UCLA’s 1980 Final Four run was vacated because of the use of ineligible players, and Kansas was banned from the 1989 postseason the year after winning the national title because of recruiting violations.

The team is banned from the 2016 postseason and will have nine scholarships taken away over the next three seasons.

SMU is likely to appeal the results, but it’s hard to predict just how long that process will take.

“While we accept responsibility for violations, the individuals responsible for the infractions have been held accountable both by the University and by the Committee on Infractions”, the school said in a statement Tuesday.