NCAA Infractions Report On USC Released; UTEP’s Tim Floyd Not Penalized
Southern California has received a two-year bowl ban and a sharp loss of football scholarships in a report on the NCAA’s four-year investigation of the school.
The NCAA cited USC for a lack of institutional control Thursday in its long-awaited report, which detailed numerous violations primarily involving Heisman Trophy-winning tailback Reggie Bush and men’s basketball player O.J. Mayo.
The NCAA found that Bush, identified as a “former football student-athlete,” was ineligible beginning at least by December 2004 and through Bush’s Heisman-winning 2005 season, which ended with the Trojans’ loss to Texas in the 2006 Rose Bowl.
USC will lose 10 football scholarships annually from 2011-13. The Trojans also received four years of probation.
While coming down hard on the football team, the NCAA largely accepted the terms of USC’s self-imposed punishment on its men’s basketball team.
USC banned itself from postseason play last season, stripped one scholarship for last season and the upcoming season, and reduced its recruiting abilities over the next year. The Trojans also vacated their 21 victories during the 2007-08 season under former coach Tim Floyd, who was accused of giving $1,000 cash to a middleman who helped steer Mayo to USC.
During a Thursday teleconference, NCAA officials said they “did not make a finding on the ($1,000) issue.”
Floyd has denied wrongdoing.
NCAA officials did say Floyd and members of his staff knew the middleman had committed NCAA violations in the past.
“The case also includes multiple impermissible inducements and extra benefits for a former men’s basketball student-athlete (Mayo), his brother, his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s mother. From August 2006 through May 2008, a representative affiliated with a professional sports agency and his associate provided cash, lodging, transportation, meals, air travel, professional personal trainers, a cell phone, wireless service, a television, watches, shoes, and clothing, among other benefits,” the report states. “The former head men’s basketball coach (Tim Floyd), assistant men’s basketball coach, institutional compliance staff, faculty athletics representative, and athletics director all knew this representative had previously committed two separate NCAA violations. One of these violations involved the former men’s basketball student-athlete and in the other violation, the representative was found to have provided benefits to a student-athlete. These university officials also knew that the representative was acting as the point person in the recruitment of the former men’s basketball student-athlete, yet failed to take steps to monitor this recruitment.”
Links:Link:UTEP Statement On USC Infractions Report; UTEP Coach Not Penalized
