NCAA Punishes U. of Arizona Hoops

The NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions announced sanctions this afternoon against the University of Arizona’s men’s basketball program.

The penalties include two years of probation and the loss of one scholarship for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years.

In a 15-page report, the committee states that the rules violations centered on a grass-roots basketball tournament for prospective athletes held on the university’s campus in 2006, 2007, and 2008. The tournament was known as the Cactus Classic and quickly became a popular youth-basketball event. It was organized by a basketball promoter who, at the urging of Arizona’s head coach at the time, Lute Olson, received financial support from boosters of the Wildcats’ athletic program.

Because of Olson’s role in promoting the on-campus tournament, the infractions committee concluded that travel money and other perks the tournaments’ participants received were therefore “impermissible inducements” under NCAA rules. (Olson has since left Arizona; Sean Miller is now the Wildcats’ head coach.)

In February the university imposed several of its own penalties on the basketball program. This afternoon, the university said in a statement it had no plans to appeal the findings.

This is Arizona’s fifth major infractions case. The most recent, in 1984, also involved the men’s basketball program.