Here is what I read, Kentucky Banned from a bowl game in 02. Does that even apply to Kentucky? when was the last time they went to a bowl game? I'll just bet they are mad as hell they're not going bowling this year!
Wildcats lose scholarships, '02 bowl game
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By Tom Farrey
ESPN.com
The University of Kentucky has been banned from going to a bowl game next season for violations primarily related to the recruiting activities of the football team's director of football operations.
The decision was issued by the NCAA Committee on Infractions -- and it can be viewed as either important or meaningless. Importantly, it marked the first time that committee handed down a bowl ban to a Division I team since 1995, when the Miami Hurricanes were hit for violations related to massive Pell Grant fraud. The only other team that has been kept out of postseason play since then was Texas Tech, which voluntarily kept itself out of the 1997 postseason in an effort to minimize penalties.
On the other hand, Kentucky is one of the worst teams in the Southeastern Conference and was not expected to vie for a bowl game berth next season. The Wildcats were 2-9 last season.
The committee considered the case "one of the more serious it has heard in recent years in terms of the scope and breadth of the violations," according to a statement released by the NCAA.
Kentucky had proposed lesser penalties. The Wildcats earlier had suggested a remedy that focused largely on scholarship cuts that could reduce the size of their recruiting classes over three years. The university agreed to drop the permissible limit of 25 initial scholarship to 16 in the 2002-03 school year, to 18 in 2003-04, and to 22 in 2004-05. Schools, however, often don't sign 25 athletes in a single year.
The NCAA did not add to the 19 potential scholarships the school had already agreed to lose. The penalty is expected to hurt but not debilitate the team's depth. For the Wildcats, rebounding from the sanctions will be made easier because the NCAA said it still will allow the team to have as many as 80 players on scholarship -- down from the maximum 85 -- each year. In addition, Kentucky has one of the largest walk-ons programs in the country.
The committee found Kentucky guilty of lack of institutional control and failure to monitor head coach Hal Mumme, charges that can bring heavy penalties. But the NCAA, in its statement, said those findings did not significantly affect the sanctions that were handed out. The committee was also impressed with the quality of Kentucky's internal investigation, which rooted out most of the violations.
Claude Bassett, the former recruiting coordinator, received an eight-year show-cause order. A show-cause penalty requires any NCAA school that employs or seeks to employ the involved individual to demonstrate to the infractions committee why a penalty should not be imposed upon the institution if it does not limit the individual's athletically related duties for a specified time. The NCAA argued that Bassett conducted meetings with representatives of the university's athletics interests and collected donations from those in attendance at the end of the meeting. For example, at one meeting in 1999, he collected $1,200; at another in 2000, he collected more than $800, the NCAA said. He told participants the funds would be used for football camps and recruiting.
During the same period of time, the NCAA said, Bassett arranged for free lodging for prospects and their families who were on unofficial visits to the campus and did the same for their high school coaches and others who accompanied them. Bassett also gave prospects and high school coaches university apparel or other items, including game tickets to an away Kentucky football game.
Bassett planned to appeal.
"Though coach Bassett readily admits to wrongdoing, he denies many of the charges against him outright," Bassett's lawyer, Robert Furnier, said in a statement. "The coach feels that he deserves to be punished for only those actions which violated NCAA regulations."
Mumme resigned during an internal investigation by Kentucky into allegations of wrongdoing in the football program.
The probe began in November 2000 and intensified the following month when a Louisville newspaper published copies of $1,400 in money orders sent from Bassett to the coach of a Memphis, Tenn., high school where the Wildcats were courting recruits.
Mumme reached a $1 million settlement with Kentucky to end his contract and still lives in Lexington. He didn't coach during the 2001 season.
Wildcats lose scholarships, '02 bowl game
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Tom Farrey
ESPN.com
The University of Kentucky has been banned from going to a bowl game next season for violations primarily related to the recruiting activities of the football team's director of football operations.
The decision was issued by the NCAA Committee on Infractions -- and it can be viewed as either important or meaningless. Importantly, it marked the first time that committee handed down a bowl ban to a Division I team since 1995, when the Miami Hurricanes were hit for violations related to massive Pell Grant fraud. The only other team that has been kept out of postseason play since then was Texas Tech, which voluntarily kept itself out of the 1997 postseason in an effort to minimize penalties.
On the other hand, Kentucky is one of the worst teams in the Southeastern Conference and was not expected to vie for a bowl game berth next season. The Wildcats were 2-9 last season.
The committee considered the case "one of the more serious it has heard in recent years in terms of the scope and breadth of the violations," according to a statement released by the NCAA.
Kentucky had proposed lesser penalties. The Wildcats earlier had suggested a remedy that focused largely on scholarship cuts that could reduce the size of their recruiting classes over three years. The university agreed to drop the permissible limit of 25 initial scholarship to 16 in the 2002-03 school year, to 18 in 2003-04, and to 22 in 2004-05. Schools, however, often don't sign 25 athletes in a single year.
The NCAA did not add to the 19 potential scholarships the school had already agreed to lose. The penalty is expected to hurt but not debilitate the team's depth. For the Wildcats, rebounding from the sanctions will be made easier because the NCAA said it still will allow the team to have as many as 80 players on scholarship -- down from the maximum 85 -- each year. In addition, Kentucky has one of the largest walk-ons programs in the country.
The committee found Kentucky guilty of lack of institutional control and failure to monitor head coach Hal Mumme, charges that can bring heavy penalties. But the NCAA, in its statement, said those findings did not significantly affect the sanctions that were handed out. The committee was also impressed with the quality of Kentucky's internal investigation, which rooted out most of the violations.
Claude Bassett, the former recruiting coordinator, received an eight-year show-cause order. A show-cause penalty requires any NCAA school that employs or seeks to employ the involved individual to demonstrate to the infractions committee why a penalty should not be imposed upon the institution if it does not limit the individual's athletically related duties for a specified time. The NCAA argued that Bassett conducted meetings with representatives of the university's athletics interests and collected donations from those in attendance at the end of the meeting. For example, at one meeting in 1999, he collected $1,200; at another in 2000, he collected more than $800, the NCAA said. He told participants the funds would be used for football camps and recruiting.
During the same period of time, the NCAA said, Bassett arranged for free lodging for prospects and their families who were on unofficial visits to the campus and did the same for their high school coaches and others who accompanied them. Bassett also gave prospects and high school coaches university apparel or other items, including game tickets to an away Kentucky football game.
Bassett planned to appeal.
"Though coach Bassett readily admits to wrongdoing, he denies many of the charges against him outright," Bassett's lawyer, Robert Furnier, said in a statement. "The coach feels that he deserves to be punished for only those actions which violated NCAA regulations."
Mumme resigned during an internal investigation by Kentucky into allegations of wrongdoing in the football program.
The probe began in November 2000 and intensified the following month when a Louisville newspaper published copies of $1,400 in money orders sent from Bassett to the coach of a Memphis, Tenn., high school where the Wildcats were courting recruits.
Mumme reached a $1 million settlement with Kentucky to end his contract and still lives in Lexington. He didn't coach during the 2001 season.
