NCAA alleges seven violations at Southern Miss under Donnie Tyndall

Southern Miss revealed it was under investigation in November which was about a week prior to Tyndall’s first game with Tennessee.

The NCAA’s notice of allegations from its investigation into Southern Miss basketball was released on Friday, detailing multiple violations from the Donnie Tyndall era in Hattiesburg.

The missteps of Tyndall and his former staff include arranging fraudulent academic credit for prospective student athletes, providing impermissible financial aid and refusing to cooperate in the NCAA investigation.

Tyndall left Southern Miss in 2014 to become the head coach at Tennessee. The school has 90 days to respond to the NCAA’s notice.

What would really make this situation ugly is if this was one of those deals where Donnie Tyndall knew that these violations were committed before he went to Tennessee. “We will continue to fully cooperate with the NCAA through the remainder of the administrative process, which we do not expect to conclude before Spring 2016”, Bennett and McGillis said.

The school notes that none of the violations involve current employees and the investigation was limited to the men’s basketball program.

Southern Miss has released a statement in response to the allegations.

“Importantly, the notice does not include a charge of a lack of institutional control or failure to monitor the program by the University”, the university said in the statement.

He apologized to the “Southern Miss community for any harm caused by violations that occurred”.

During Tyndall’s lone year in Knoxville, the Vols went 16-16. Shumate was an assistant coach in his one year with the Golden Eagles. Dowling resigned from the Southern Miss coaching staff in March.

Allegations such as these usually bring about some sort of “show cause penalty” for the coach, which means any school wishing to hire the coach must appear before the NCAA infractions committee and potentially face new sanctions.

In all, the notice consists of seven formal allegations, four of which are against Tyndall.

This week, The University of Southern Mississippi received a Notice of Allegations from the NCAA related to alleged rules violations within our men’s basketball program while under the leadership of a former head coach. He was fired on March 27 for reasons related to NCAA investigation.

Tyndall led the Golden Eagles to a record of 56-17 over two seasons with two National Invitational Tournament appearances before leaving for Tennessee.

Tyndall’s contract at Tennessee was through March 2020 and would have paid him $1.6 million annually, but Hart said the day he fired him that the terms should prevent the school from owing him any more money.