The Independent Accountability Resolution Process has charged Memphis with Level II and Level III violations, handing the school a $5,000 fine, three years probation and opting not to punish coach Penny Hardaway. The decision, made by the newly formed independent arm of the enforcement process, is a serious downgrade from the NCAA enforcement staff’s notice of allegations, which, according to the Daily Memphian, had charged Memphis with four Level I violations, including one directly implicating Hardaway.
The case centered around Hardaway’s involvement with top recruit James Wiseman, who received $11,500 from Hardaway in the summer of 2017, when he relocated from Nashville to Memphis. The NCAA argued that Hardaway, who coached Wiseman on his AAU team, was a booster because he had donated $1 million in March 2008 to build a sports hall of fame. The case grew complicated after Hardaway was tabbed as the Tigers’ coach in March 2018.
Prior to Wiseman’s freshman year, in 2019, the NCAA informed Memphis that Wiseman would likely be ineligible to play during his freshman year, but the school got a restraining order allowing him to play three games. The NCAA later dinged Wiseman with a 12-game suspension, and he left for the NBA.
The IARP did vacate the three games that Wiseman participated in but argued that Hardaway was not aware and “that the institution’s leadership allowed student-athlete No. 1 to participate in a November 5, 2019, basketball contest without informing the head coach until after the contest that student-athlete No. 1 had been determined to be ineligible to play. ”
Had Hardaway been charged, he could have faced a significant game suspension. The IARP, however, argued that Hardaway had “a long-standing philanthropic commitment, particularly to youth in the economically disadvantaged Memphis community, even prior to becoming an athletics booster. The hearing panel determined that the benefits provided by the head coach were generally available to all prospective students of Memphis, not only student-athletes.” It argued that the relationship began prior to his donation in 2008, and to his becoming coach.
The IARP was designed to streamline the enforcement process and reconsider complex cases by using mediators not affiliated with the NCAA and is a direct outgrowth of the FBI investigation into college basketball. After the IARP failed to speed up the decisions, however, — it was handed the Memphis case on March 4, 2020 — the NCAA transformation committee, charged with reconsidering enforcement yet again, recently decided the group will be dissolved after it finishes its current caseload.
(Photo: Chris Jones / USA Today)
