Report: Arizona handed five NCAA Level 1 allegations, requests case be heard by independent panel

After the NCAA accused Arizona of five Level 1 violations, according to a report in The Athletic, the school requested its infractions case be moved from the traditional NCAA infractions track to the Independent Accountability Resolution Process.

The Athletic said Arizona was charged with nine allegations overall, including a Level I lack of control charge against basketball coach Sean Miller, plus Level I lack of institutional control and failure to monitor charges against the university.

The Athletic said the NCAA also issued a Level I lack of control charge for swim coach Augie Busch, whose program remains under NCAA probation because of violations committed under his predecessor, Rick DeMont.

Level I violations are the most serious NCAA infractions and can lead to postseason bans or other significant penalties. Arizona appeared almost certain to receive at least one Level I allegation after former assistant basketball coach Book Richardson admitted to taking $20,000 in bribes in a January 2019 plea agreement; NCAA head coach responsibility rules mean head coach Sean Miller can be held accountable even if he did not know about it.

Oklahoma State faced a similar Level I charge after former assistant coach Lamont Evans admitted to taking $22,000 in bribes and subsequently was banned from the 2020-21 postseason. The school has appealed that decision.

Arizona acknowledged receiving the NCAA's Notice of Allegations on Friday but would not release it, which suggested there may have been significant accusations the school did not want to make public and/or might have trouble defending. Most schools implicated in the federal investigation into college basketball have released NOAs received from their resulting NCAA investigations.

According to The Athletic, the NCAA said Arizona “compromised the integrity of the investigation and failed to cooperate," reporting that the NCAA said in its Notice of Allegations that the refusal of former assistant coaches Book Richardson and Mark Phelps to speak with NCAA investigators was an aggravating factor.

However, UA outside counsel Paul Kelly called that stance “adversarial posturing" in a letter, The Athletic said, writing that Arizona “strenuously denies this allegation and intends to establish that this claim is unfounded.”

Richardson met with NCAA enforcement staff in December 2019, according to a report in The New York Daily News. The Daily News quoted Richardson saying about that meeting that “they didn’t just want to get Arizona, they wanted me to give up all of college basketball.”

The Daily News' Stefan Bondy also reported that the NCAA approached Richardson again in June about UA allegations, but wrote that Richardson "isn't interested in cooperating."

Text messages sent Sunday by the Star seeking comment from Richardson and Phelps were not returned. Kelly also did not respond to an email request for comment.

The Athletic reported Kelly requested the IARP route because the school wanted to receive "a neutral and unbiased tribunal to hear the evidence, consider the legal and factual arguments, and issue a decision that is fair and just.”

Created in 2018 after a recommendation from the Rice commission, which reviewed college basketball in the wake of the FBI's investigation, the IARP consists of a "complex case unit" of independent investigators and attorneys who essentially take over the NCAA enforcement department's work.

Then an IARP panel, consisting of people with legal, higher education and/or sports backgrounds who are not affiliated with a school or conference, evaluates the findings and issues penalties that are not able to be appealed.

A case can be requested to be moved to the IARP by either the involved school, the NCAA's enforcement staff or the NCAA infractions committee, but it first must be approved by an IARP referral committee.

The referral committee consists of one IARP resolution panel member, an infractions committee member, and infractions appeals committee member, the Division I Council chair and the Division I Council vice chair. The NCAA will make a brief announcement if the referral committee accepts a case in the IARP.

So far, the IARP has not settled any cases yet but it is currently sorting through those from Kansas, North Carolina State and LSU, all of which were also involved in the federal investigation into college basketball.

According to The Athletic, the NCAA also said Arizona’s decision not to supply the final report produced by the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson was an aggravating factor. The school hired Steptoe & Johnson to conduct a private investigation after Richardson was arrested in September 2017.

Kelly said that assertion was unreasonable, The Athletic said, because the NCAA’s enforcement staff was permitted to attend the interviews during the Steptoe & Johnson investigation and see the documents it produced, so it had access to the same information.

Details of the allegation against Busch are not publicly known. The UA swimming and diving program is already under NCAA probation through Jan. 21, 2021 because of a January 2019 ruling that former UA diving coach Omar Ojeda committed multiple violations.

The NCAA ruled that DeMont knew what Ojeda was doing but did nothing to stop it. DeMont retired later in 2019 and Busch replaced him. UA let Ojeda's contract expire.

The terms of the probation for UA's swim include developing an educational program about NCAA legislation, issuing compliance reports every Dec. 15 to the infractions committee office, informing recruits about the probation and publicizing the findings.

In its history, the UA has had six previous cases defined as major by the NCAA, including the men's basketball case of 2010. The UA’s other cases involved men’s basketball (1984), football (1983 and 1961) and men’s track and field (1974).

As part of a 1999 joint investigation by Arizona, NCAA, the Pac-10 and the NBA's player association that found star guard Jason Terry accepted benefits from an agent, Arizona forfeited its 1999 NCAA Tournament game and returned $45,362 in tournament revenues to the NCAA.