NCAA After Sooners

[50's PONY]

NCAA panel summons Sooners

By Justin Harper and George Schroeder
The Oklahoman

NORMAN - The Oklahoma men’s basketball program faces a hearing with the NCAA’s infractions committee concerning rules violations that could possibly result in major penalties.
Stemming from an NCAA investigation that began in May 2004, the NCAA enforcement committee has deemed the case against OU as major. In response to the recruiting violations found in the investigation - primarily centered on excessive phone calls to recruits - OU implemented self-imposed sanctions.

However, in a letter dated Dec. 15, 2005, the NCAA notified OU the self-imposed penalties had not been accepted, and summoned OU to a hearing before the infractions committee. The date has not been set, but the hearing will be conducted in April in Park City, Utah.

Concerning the situation, OU men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson said Wednesday: “I just can’t comment. There’s nothing I can say.”

OU’s self-imposed penalties included taking Sampson off the road in the pivotal recruiting month of July; a two-year probationary period for men’s basketball from July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2007; and a reduction of scholarships from 13 to 11 for the 2005-06 academic year and from 13 to 12 for the 2006-07 academic year.

OU’s athletic department issued a release Wednesday afternoon with statements from Sampson, athletic director Joe Castiglione and president David Boren.

“We are pleased that we now have reached the point in the process to bring the matter to final resolution,” Castiglione said.

But a hearing before the infractions committee is typically not good news.

Better for OU would have been if the infractions committee had accepted the self-imposed sanctions. Although a hearing does not necessarily mean the infractions committee would not ultimately accept OU’s self-imposed sanctions, it leaves open the possibility of harsher findings, including major violations and penalties such as possible probation or reduction in scholarships.

NCAA spokesman Kent Barrett said Wednesday it is against policy to discuss cases such as OU’s.

“We don’t comment on any infractions case until it is finalized,” Barrett said. “Generally, the institutions will provide some details.”

In copies of the NCAA’s 62-page, Dec. 15 letter and the NCAA enforcement staff’s 126-page summary disposition report obtained by The Oklahoman, allegations are centered primarily on Sampson and former OU assistant coaches Jim Shaw and Ray Lopes. Current OU assistant Bob Hoffman is named, but in a much more narrow focus.

Lopes, who resigned from his position as Fresno State’s head coach last March, admitted to telephone violations at both schools.

Toby Baldwin, Lopes’ attorney, said Wednesday Lopes did not want to comment, “except to say he greatly respects Kelvin Sampson and the job he does, and he’s grateful for the job the university (of Oklahoma) gave him.”

Baldwin said Lopes “would cooperate with the investigation.”

The names of all student-athletes who were called excessively have been omitted from the documents. However, they include information that appears to be related to senior forward Kevin Bookout, true freshman guard Austin Johnson and November signee Damian James, among others.

The violations involve impermissible telephone contacts with recruits. Also listed are secondary violations involving extra benefits - a T-shirt given to a recruit on one occasion and a T-shirt given to a recruit’s mother on another - and three impermissible in-person contacts with recruits.

It’s stated in the enforcement staff summary that the case involves “over 550 impermissible telephone contacts with at least 17 prospective student-athletes” over a four-year period. The NCAA rule is one call per week per recruit.

Generally, the NCAA has considered breaking this rule a secondary violation. A school is often forbidden from contacting a certain recruit for an extended time period as punishment. But the NCAA defines a secondary violation as “one that is isolated or inadvertent in nature.”

And the NCAA’s enforcement staff found “the violations were not isolated or inadvertent, and the excessive contacts with these prospects during the recruiting process afforded the institution an extensive recruiting advantage.”

Also in the notice from the NCAA is the allegation that Sampson did not adequately monitor his and his staff’s phone usage in regards to recruiting during the investigation period of April 2000 through September 2004. In his statement, Boren said, “an electronic system also has been added to monitor phone calls.”

In the university release, Sampson said: “I accept responsibility for and am disappointed in the violations in our basketball program.”

The release also said that no further public comments on the situation will be given until after the April hearing.

[EastStang]

Glad to see that Tubbs name is not appearing in the report.

[mrydel]

yet