Ull Football And Basketball Placed On Two Years Probation

[NT80]

BREAKING NEWS IN SPORTS: NCAA penalizes UL for infractions in men's basketball and football

BOB HEIST

bheist@theadvertiser.com

The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions has penalized UL for major and secondary violations in the football and men's basketball programs. That announcement was made official this afternoon, and in fact, is currently being addressed in a teleconference that began at 2 p.m.

Making the official announcement on the penalties is Infractions Committee chair Josephine R. Potuto.

In a five-page document obtained by The Daily Advertiser from the NCAA, penalties for the violations included placing the university on two years of probation, a vacation of records and forfeiture of championship revenue, among other sanctions.

The most major of the sanctions involved the men's basketball team, in particular former player Orien Greene.

The Committee on Infractions found that Greene — who was not identified in the release — relied on correspondence courses taken through another institution to meet his percentage-of-degree and grade-point average requirements in order to maintain satisfactory progress for eligibility during the 2004 spring semester and 2004-05 academic year.

NCAA rules stipulate that student-athletes cannot use correspondence courses taken from another institution to meet these requirements.

"The committee is dismayed that the institution failed to comply with a simple, unambiguous bylaw and, as a consequence, allowed a star student-athlete to compete for a full season and half of another," the report from the Infractions Committee stated.

The violations in the football program occurred during the summers from 2002 through 2005 and involved voluntary conditioning activities becoming mandatory because of actions by members of the football and strength and conditioning staffs.

The strength and conditioning coach at the time, Brad Ohrt, provided both written and verbal updates to the coaching staff about student-athletes participating in summer workouts. Also, members of the football coaching staff occasionally observed workouts, provided skill training and tracked student-athlete attendance in the summer conditioning program.

Sanctions against UL provided by NCAA officials included:

-Public reprimand and censure.

-Two years of probation (April 19, 2007 to April 18, 2009).

-Forfeiting all games that Green participated in — including the NCAA tournament — during the 2003-04 and 2004-05 seasons. Coaching and school records are mandated to reflect the forfeitures.

-Reduction of one scholarship in men's basketball for two years.

-Forfeiture of NCAA Tournament revenue received from the Sun Belt Conference.

See Friday's print edition for further details and reaction to the sanctions against UL announced by the NCAA.

[Stan R]

refresh my memory - what was OU's penalty for paying Bhomar et all?

[MeanGreen61]

ESPN article on the probation.

Louisiana-Lafayette gets two years probationAssociated Press

LAFAYETTE, La. -- Louisiana-Lafayette was placed on probation for two years and will lose two basketball scholarships under NCAA sanctions announced Thursday, stemming from a basketball player's correspondence course and the football program's mandatory summer workouts.

The head of the NCAA's Division I Infractions Committee said the panel did not find the violations to be intentional.

Instead, school officials "failed to catch the obvious error" regarding the correspondence courses and the football staff failed to recognize that its "voluntary program" for football conditioning had gone beyond NCAA limits.

As a result of the violations, Louisiana-Lafayette will forfeit 90 percent of the first year's money it got from the Sun Belt Conference for playing in the NCAA basketball tournaments in 2004 and 2005 and will forfeit two scholarships -- either both in one year or one in each of two years.

The records of the school's basketball team in 2003-04 and 2004-05 -- including NCAA tournament participation -- also will be erased and the school will not be allowed to make any reference to it, the NCAA said.

The football team will have its allowable weekly practice hours reduced from 20 hours to 15 hours, either during the current spring semester or in the 2008 spring semester.

The NCAA did not disclose the amount of money involved in the revenue forfeiture. The university did not immediately comment on the findings.

The committee's head, Josephine Potuto, said during a teleconference that the basketball allegations surrounded one player who used 15 hours worth of credit from non-ULL correspondence course to maintain the minimum grade-point average and progress toward a degree needed to be eligible to play.

"An institution may not use correspondence courses taken at another school," Potuto said.

Citing NCAA privacy regulations, Potuto would not disclose the player's name.

Potuto said the problem with the conditioning program began when the then-conditioning coach made written reports about which players were attending and football coaches occasionally observed the workouts and tracked attendance.

"Those observations can switch a voluntary activity to a non-voluntary activity," Potuto said.

University officials, who appeared before the infractions committee in February, proposed wiping out the basketball records and forfeiting the conference basketball revenue, Potuto said.

In addition, the committee ordered the university to provide NCAA rules training for admission, financial aid, compliance and registration.

[untbowler]

once again the NCAA shows their bias by trying to make examples of smaller school while OU, USC, and the likes run wild with little, no response or swept under the rug.

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

Wow! That makes what Reggie Bush and Rhett Bomar pale by comparison.

Green should have just taken money instead of taking a correspondence at another college. Then UL would've only gotten fined the same amount that USC and OU did. Oh, wait. We don't have the same standards for the struggling universities that we do for the big money, glamour institutions.

The correspondence course should have raised eyebrows with the compliance people at UL and they deserve some type of penalty for that but the weight-training fiasco is BS. Surely, no more than a warning should have been given for that violation.

[meangreendork]

I don't like ULL as a rival, but this is BS.

Rhett Bomar and friends take money (in the thousands!) for work they didn't do and what barely passes for a slap on the wrist is given to OU. But when someone tries to wiggle around some rules, it's time to pull money from a college whose scholarship players need the money, and pull scholarships...that's crap. I call massive BS on this one. As always, there's gonna be a media fiasco about double standards, but the NCAA won't do anything because the big schools are what feeds the NCAA, and no one bites the hand that feeds, especially a multi-million dollar hand.

And you know, it's the same NCAA people who'll wonder why smaller programs can't compete as well. I'm pretty sure that taking away money and scholarships won't assist them, especially when bigger schools have done things that should get their programs suspended for entire seasons and never get punished.

[LongJim]

refresh my memory - what was OU's penalty for paying Bhomar et all?

We'll all know in about 5 weeks.

[LongJim]

Oh, wait. We don't have the same standards for the struggling universities that we do for the big money, glamour institutions.

Division I-A institutions on probation

The following institutions are currently on probation by the NCAA:

Arizona State University (through 2007)

Baylor University (through 2010)

California State University, Fresno (through 2010)

University of Georgia (through 2008)

Georgia Institute of Technology (through 2007)

University of Iowa (through 2008)[4]

University of Kansas (through 2009)

University of Memphis (through 2007)

Mississippi State University (through 2008)

University of Missouri (through 2007)

Northern Illinois University (through 2007)

Ohio State University (through 2009)

University of Oklahoma (through 2008)

University of South Carolina, Columbia (through 2008)

Texas Christian University (through 2007)

University of Washington (through 2007)

Here's a link to ALL schools by division that are on probation:

Probation PDF

[Shof]

Not sure how the committee came to the conclusion that the weight training gave the appearance of it being "mandatory". Heck, we can't even afford to keep the players in school over the summer, much less make them attend weight training! And, that compliance officer has been gone for a couple years now. stAte: you're welcome!

The only part of the probation that really hurts is the basketball scholorship loss. Football already completed the reduction in spring training hours (from what I've heard) and the money loss from tournaments was minimal.

Shof