Kansas men’s basketball escaped serious penalties from the NCAA from a multi-year investigation into the program’s involvement in the college basketball federal corruption scandal.
According to Sports Illustrated, NCAA’s Independent Accountability Review Process is set to announce Wednesday that Kansas’ five Level I allegations had been downgraded to Level II allegations and that the program had received a three-year probation. There are no additional penalties, meaning Kansas does not have to vacate any wins from previous seasons and is eligible for postseason competition this season.
The decision comes after Kansas self-imposed penalties at the start of the 2022-23 season. Coach Bill Self and assistant coach Kurtis Townsend served a four-game suspension while the school also imposed recruiting limitations.
The light punishment is a whimper of a conclusion to what had been a contentious back-and-forth between Kansas and the NCAA. After the school was implicated in the 2017 FBI investigation into the way payments were allegedly being made to players to attend certain schools, the NCAA sent a notice of allegations to Kansas in 2019 that alleged three Level I violations, a lack of institutional control charge and a head coach responsibility charge against Self.
The notice of allegations centered around the recruitments of Billy Preston and Silvio De Sousa. According to testimony from the corruption trial, an Adidas consultant directed nearly $100,000 to Preston’s mother while another payment was made to De Sousa’s guardian. Adidas is the apparel manufacturer for Kansas and text messages between Self and T.J. Gassnola, the Adidas consultant, showed the two discussed recruiting.