SMU Mustangs basketball was banned from the 2015-2016 postseason and head coach Larry Brown was suspended for nine games on Tuesday due to NCAA violations.
The Mustangs were the reigning AAC Champions in basketball heading into the 2015 season and widely expected to find themselves in the NCAA tournament yet again this year. However, multiple NCAA rules violations have stripped them of their AAC Championship victory and will prevent the team from competing in the NCAA tournament and the AAC tournament this season.
SMU Basketball will also be placed on a three year probation period, lose a total of nine scholarships over those years and be subjected to multiple recruiting restrictions. This is the school’s tenth major infractions case with the most recent case coming again from the basketball program in 2011.
The violations stem from an administrative assistant for the basketball team doing all of the coursework for a class for one of the players and then attempting to cover it up. The report written by the NCAA details a former assistant basketball coach telling a player which online class to sign up for and then following it up by giving the aforementioned player’s class login to an administrative assistant to do the work.
According to the 60-page report written by the NCAA Committee on Infractions, head coach Larry Brown reportedly found out about the academic fraud in 2014 and did not report any possible violations for a month. Upon further investigation, the report notes that ‘he initially lied about the underlying violations when interviewed by the enforcement staff’.
It remains to be seen if SMU will appeal any of the decisions handed down by the NCAA within the 15-day period in which they have to do so. UCF Knights basketball is currently scheduled to play the SMU Mustangs on Jan. 10, 2016 in Dallas, TX.
