With self-imposed sanctions, Kansas admits some blame, seeks to move on
The latest news in what seems like an endless NCAA merry-go-round came Wednesday when the Kansas men’s basketball program announced it is self-imposing a suspension for the first four games of the upcoming season on head coach Bill Self and assistant Kurtis Townsend.
First reported by Stadium’s Jeff Goodman, the suspension also includes multiple recruiting restrictions for the head coach of the reigning national champions. This all comes as a response to the FBI's investigation into college basketball corruption that launched back in 2017, which led to the NCAA’s Independent Accountability Resolution Process investigation in 2019.
[Kansas suspends Bill Self for four games in infractions case]
The investigation alleges that Kansas committed multiple Level I violations for lack of institutional control. The main allegations stem back to Kansas partner Adidas, and Townsend allegedly encouraging employees at the company to influence blue-chip recruits to join the Jayhawks. The case is based on whether the Adidas employees were boosters of the school, and whether Kansas had any knowledge of the payments being made to top prospects. The sanctions include:
- Four-game suspension for Self and Townsend to be served during the first four regular-season games of the 2022-23 season.
- Self and Townsend are barred from off-campus recruiting-related activities for four months (April through July 2022).
- Reduction of four official recruiting visits during this academic year and in 2023-24.
- Reduction of three total scholarships in men's basketball, to be distributed over next three years.
- Six-week ban on recruiting communications, a six-week ban on unofficial visits and a 13-day reduction in recruiting days during 2022-23.
- No recruiting visits for 2022 Late Night in the Phog.
What does this all mean?
For starters, Kansas is admitting wrongdoing and asking for forgiveness. That’s a total change in approach from where the university stood on this matter two years ago, when it openly ripped the NCAA for its allegations.
"The NCAA enforcement staff's reply does not in any way change the University of Kansas' position that the allegations brought against our men's basketball program are simply baseless and littered with false representations," Kansas officials wrote in a statement in May 2020. "As the federal trial proved, Adidas employees intentionally concealed impermissible payments from the University and its coaching staff. The University has never denied these impermissible payments were made. For the NCAA enforcement staff to allege that the University should be held responsible for these payments is a distortion of the facts and a gross misapplication of NCAA Bylaws and case precedent."
The Jayhawks even went so far as to give Self a lifetime contract extension in the middle of this investigation process last April. They have stood by their Hall of Fame coach, and still do, but imposing a penalty shows that the NCAA's allegations are not all false and baseless. By the same token, assessing a four-game suspension indicates that while the Jayhawks admit wrongdoing, they don’t see their infractions the way the NCAA sees them as five Level I violations. In fact, Kansas doesn’t view the allegations as anything close to that, which is put on display by the minuscule suspension.
What does the punishment mean for this season?
Not much, if anything. It’s notable that Self won’t be on the sidelines for the Jayhawks' Champions Classic game against Duke on Nov. 15, but the other three games come against Omaha, North Dakota State and Southern Utah. Sure, the game against Jon Scheyer’s Blue Devils is big, but it's a November contest. There’s so much season left after that one, and it won’t have much bearing on the season in general. Self will be back when the Jayhawks head to the Battle 4 Atlantis, and all signs point to him coaching the remainder of the season.
The NCAA is still in the investigation process, and there are more proceedings to come that are not scheduled until later in the winter, according to sources. That means that if Self were to receive a formal penalty — which is not subject to an appeal, by the way — he would not serve it until the 2023-24 season.
The top-10 ranked Jayhawks’ hopes of again being in a championship race won’t be altered much at all this year, but the wait-and-see approach to all of this forges on.
That brings up the next reaction piece to all of this: The NCAA’s investigation process is awful.
When news of the FBI's investigation broke in 2017, Kansas’ current freshman class was in the eighth grade. The process is so badly in need of change that outgoing NCAA President Mark Emmert openly admitted in April that everything has taken way too long.
It’s still possible that Self could receive a season ban come 2023-24, if not something worse. The NCAA has claimed that it’s trying to get away from penalizing kids that had nothing to do with violations committed, although Oklahoma State received a one-year postseason ban last season, hurting student-athletes that had nothing to do with the penalties placed on them.
Will Kansas being proactive and asking for mercy help the Jayhawks’ cause on potential penalties moving forward? At the end of the day, this news is happening because Kansas wants some closure on this situation. It’s taken forever to resolve this case, along with those involving Louisville, Arizona and others across college basketball. The Jayhawks' admission of wrongdoing is newsworthy, though, and a 180 from what they were previously preaching.
For this season though, Self will be on the sidelines, albeit a bit later than expected. But the reigning national champions should not have their goals impacted this season. We’ll see how the IARP sees it when they finally rule on the case, which the Jayhawks likely won’t feel the real impact of until next year.
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John Fanta is a national college basketball broadcaster and writer for FOX Sports. He covers the sport in a variety of capacities, from calling games on FS1 to serving as lead host on the BIG EAST Digital Network to providing commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him on Twitter @John_Fanta.
