The NCAA has imposed five Level 1 charges against Arizona: four against the men’s basketball program and one against the athletic department, the school announced Friday.
Charges included lack of liability against head coach Sean Miller. Most of the charges focused on former aides Book Richardson and Mark Phelps, while Miller was charged with general misconduct for encouraging compliance or overseeing his reports.
The complete list of level 1 positions is as follows:
- Unethical recruiting conduct that leads to academic misconduct on the part of former assistant coaches Book Richardson and Mark Phelps. The NCAA said they “participated in a lack of pre-enrollment academic conduct and / or provided an inadmissible recruitment incentive when they deliberately organized false academic records.
- Richardson’s unethical conduct in accepting $ 20,000 bribes (a charge Richardson admitted to and served a three-month prison sentence).
- Phelps’ unethical behavior in asking an AU player to delete a text message thread related to an unauthorized $ 500 loan he had provided and which he lied to investigators.
- Miller’s responsibility for not proving that he promoted compliance.
- Arizona lacks institutional control due to men’s basketball loads and two level II loads related to swimming.
The NCAA also issued Level 2 charges against Phelps for giving a loan to a $ 500 player and for asking a player to help him hire.
Other Level 2 charges were issued against the swimming and diving program for organizing illegal trials and for the lack of responsibility of the head coach by Augie Busch.
Arizona self-imposed a one-year post-season ban on Dec. 29 for its men’s basketball program, acknowledging “that the NCAA investigation revealed that some former men’s basketball staff members showed serious slips in the trial. “.
The NCAA sanction system requires a one- to two-year post-season ban under a standard Tier 1 offense, even though an aggravated Tier 1 offense has a two- to four-year ban. Among the aggravating factors is the designation that a program “compromised the integrity of the investigation” and did not cooperate.
If Miller is found guilty of a Level 1 charge, he will lose a $ 1 million bonus, although he may have already been paid a portion of that bonus and should return the payment.
Richardson pleaded guilty to accepting $ 20,000 bribes for directing Arizona players toward aspiring agent Christian Dawkins and financial manager Munish Sood. Richardson told Dawkins that Miller was paying $ 10,000 for Deandre Ayton to sign with Arizona and that the intercepted phone call was played out in court.