Analysis: How Sean Miller, Wildcats avoided major sanctions in infractions case

At what essentially became the start of Arizona’s long NCAA infractions case journey, then-assistant coach Book Richardson opened his door at 6 a.m. on a September 2017 morning to find FBI agents standing by with a battering ram.

Handcuffed, he hopped in a black SUV and later served three months in federal prison.

Over the next five years, another former Arizona assistant coach, Mark Phelps, was removed from the staff for reasons that had nothing to do with the federal investigation into college basketball.

And, for what UA said had to do with both on and off the court performance, Arizona fired head coach Sean Miller in April 2021.

Things didn’t look too good for the Wildcats while the FBI, then the NCAA and then the Independent Accountability Resolution Process went through their closet over the past five years.

It wasn’t fun for them on the court, either. Opposing fans poked at the Arizona men’s basketball team for years, some wearing FBI gear, others calling the school “U of Pay” instead of “U of A” and some mocking the Miller’s “A Players Program” motto by referring to his program as “A Payers Program.”

Yet, when it finally wrapped up Wednesday in a 120-page case report by the hearing panel for the IARP, mostly what it all came down to was a relatively small pile of cash.

Arizona, with an athletic department budget of just over $100 million, will have to fork over a fine of about $135,000.

That’s it. The IARP also took away a scholarship for one year, but the Wildcats are already down one under the 13-player limit this season, so they have effectively satisfied that penalty.

There are other minor penalties. Because former UA guard Rawle Alkins was declared retroactively ineligible after the IARP found Richardson obtained fraudulent high school academic records that made him eligible in 2016, the school will have to formally erase Alkins’ personal records and the 50 wins that he played in during the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons.

The current UA coaching staff will have give up two in-person recruiting days and a week of recruiting communication.

But again, nothing substantial going forward.

So how did it come to this? Here’s five reasons why:

1. Arizona moved off the standard NCAA resolution track.

Less than a week after Arizona received its official NCAA Notice of Allegations in October 2020, a document that signals the end of the NCAA’s investigation, Arizona requested its case be moved to the then-new IARP.

The school had little to lose. The original NOA indicated the Wildcats could be hit with multiple years of postseason bans because it listed five Level I (most serious) charges and aggravating factors that included UA president Robert C. Robbins and athletic director Dave Heeke having “compromised the integrity of the investigation.”

Stu Brown, an Atlanta-based attorney who represents schools with NCAA cases, told the Star in March 2021 that “NCAA enforcement staff has clearly positioned the case as Level I-aggravated for the university,” a classification that could have called for up to a five-year postseason ban.

But the IARP reduced Arizona’s case to Level I-standard, which only warrants a 1-2 year postseason ban under the NCAA’s penalty matrix. It also showed a propensity to avoid sanctioning current players in the three previous cases it settled.

Now disbanded but still finishing up unresolved cases, the IARP did not issue a postseason ban to any of the three complex cases it finished before Arizona’s. It handed a one-year probation to North Carolina State in December 2021, a three-year probation to Memphis in September and a two-year probation to Louisville in November, plus other minor penalties to all three programs.

Not surprisingly, then, when the IARP held a video news conference Wednesday to discuss Arizona’s case, chief panel member Dana Welch said “the panel was intentional in not prescribing penalties that would have a negative impact on current student-athletes.”

They didn’t. The IARP instead handed Arizona penalties that included the $135,000 fine ($5,000 plus 1% of the men’s basketball budget for a program that spent $13.2 million in 2020-21, the last publicly reported fiscal year).

While Richardson (10 years) and Phelps (two years) individually received show-cause orders effectively keeping them out of college basketball for an assigned length of time, Arizona itself only also faced the scrubbing of records from 2016-17 and 2017-18 plus a number of minor recruiting penalties, most of which were self-imposed and already served.

The IARP even accepted Arizona’s self-imposed two-week ban on campus recruiting visits in March 2022 — when the Wildcats were on the road for three straight weeks competing in the Pac-12 and NCAA Tournaments.

The most significant recruiting penalty was Arizona’s self-imposed loss of one scholarship. The Wildcats are allowed to serve it now, since they are already one under the 13-player scholarship limit for the 2022-23 season.

“The IARP has been perhaps more skeptical of allegations, or at least more willing to not find allegations, than traditionally has been the case with the (NCAA’s) Committee on Infractions,” Brown said. “ Who knows how it would have turned out? You can’t know with certainty, but I think it probably did turn out to be a good thing for Arizona to go to the IARP.

“There are some recruiting restrictions, but many of those have already been served, and there’s no additional postseason ban. The program can move forward. So given what I think is a good result (for Arizona), you’d have to say yes, it was a good decision to go to the IARP.”

2. Miller’s rebuttal was a resounding success.

The NCAA’s initial NOA included a Level I charge against Miller for not monitoring Richardson and Phelps, and didn’t hold back on explaining why.

“Two of Miller’s three assistant coaches committed intentional violations involving fraudulent academic transcripts, receipt of cash bribes, facilitating a meeting with an aspiring agent, impermissible inducements and recruiting violations all within an 18-month period,” the NCAA wrote. “The ultimate responsibility for the integrity of the men’s basketball program rested with Miller and his staff’s actions reflect on Miller as the head coach.”

The head coach responsibility charge, known formally as NCAA bylaw 11.1.1.1, carries a stiff standard for rebuttal. But the IARP ultimately ruled  Miller did so, listing 18 examples of how Miller worked toward compliance, including the keeping a “Book of Truth” journal it said “documented many compliance-related events and actions.”

The IARP also said Miller had told his assistants that he expected them to unconditionally follow NCAA rules, that he held meetings to underscore that the responsibility of integrity of the program rested with him and that he insisted his staffers follow an “ask before action” approach requiring them to first consult with UA compliance officers before making a compliance-related decision.

Miller also required his assistants to document their activity after recruiting trips and asked that a member of the UA compliance staff accompany the team on every road trip. That condition still applies today: UA senior associate athletic director Brent Blaylock, who oversees compliance, routinely sits in on postgame news conferences. Robbins and Heeke often join him.

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“It’s a long laundry list of things,” Brown said. “But the fact is that the panel believed that the evidence showed that Sean did those things, and that they were sufficient to show a commitment to compliance.”

What’s more, Welch said, the IARP found there was “just no way” Miller knew of Richardson and Phelps’ dealings, citing the long federal probe into Richardson and Phelps’ “covert” actions.

“In our view, these kinds of actions could not have been detected by the head coach,” Welch said.

3. Phelps’ charges were reduced.

One possible factor in Arizona’s overall case dropping from a potential Level I-aggravated to a Level II-standard was that the initial five Level I charges were dropped to just three, and all of them were tagged to Richardson’s dealings.

Phelps was initially charged along with Richardson for a Level I academic misconduct charge and a Level I for trying to cover up a $500 loan.

But the IARP dropped Phelps entirely out of the Level I academic misconduct charge because it disagreed with an allegation that he was involved in obtaining a fraudulent academic record for a recruit. Phelps denied the charge, involving a falsified grade in a geometry class, and the IARP said there was “insufficient credible and persuasive information” indicating Phelps was behind it.

The IARP also noted that the falsified record was also sent to another institution, finding it therefore “highly unlikely” Phelps was behind it.

Regarding the alleged loan cover-up, the IARP said Phelps asked Pinder to erase a text message thread about the loan and that Arizona did not mention Phelps’ instruction when self-reporting the loan as a Level III violation (the IARP said there were differing opinions of UA staffers over whether to mention it or not).

The IARP said Phelps gave the player, identified as “student-athlete No. 3” but clearly Pinder because the IARP said he was from Australia and UA had no other Australians at the time, the loan for a plane ticket to visit a mentor in New Orleans.

Pinder had been approved to be reimbursed for a plane ticket home to Australia via the Student-Athlete Assistance fund, but the check had not arrived before Pinder wanted it for the New Orleans trip, the IARP said. So in June 2017 the IARP said Phelps offered $500 as a “bridge” until he received the check, leaving an envelope with $500 in it inside the office of the director of basketball operations, where Pinder picked it up.

The IARP said Phelps reported that in October 2017 he was given a litigation hold notice from UA that required him to review his files for any discussion about money with any student-athlete. Phelps reported the loan on Oct. 31, and UA sought reinstatement of Pinder the next day, suspending Pinder for one game and Phelps for five days.

Because Phelps instructed Pinder to delete the text messages about the loan, and because there is no record that he complied with the litigation hold requirement by providing a list of his devices or turning them over, the IARP said Phelps “acted unethically, compromised the integrity of the investigation, failed to cooperate with the investigation, and failed to provide all relevant or requested information.”

Still, the IARP reduced both charges against Phelps, moving the Level I for covering up the loan to Level II-aggravated while moving the loan itself from a Level II charge to a Level III violation.

4. The IARP ruled UA moved quickly and substantially.

Based on the fact that Miller was found not guilty of any violations or lack of oversight, Arizona might not have even needed to fire him in April 2021 for what it termed on and off the court reasons (the Wildcats had recently completed a 17-9 season that was viewed as a moderate success, considering their young roster and COVID-related interruptions). The IARP does not list Miller’s dismissal as a mitigating factor at all.

But the school did get credit for moving quickly with Richardson. UA suspended Richardson with pay on the same day he was formally charged in federal court. The school fired Richardson in January 2018 after his appeal failed.

Arizona also removed Phelps from Miller’s staff in February 2019 after the academic transcript allegation surfaced. The school did not fire him but left Miller’s staff shorthanded for the rest of 2018-19, then let his contract run out at the end of the season.

The IARP saluted UA for “meaningful” self-imposed penalties, the most substantial of which was its postseason ban in 2020-21. The Wildcats’ 17-9 finish ultimately would have probably left them on the NCAA Tournament bubble, but the school’s timing turned out to be ideal.

Arizona announced the postseason ban a day after the Wildcats had beaten Colorado to improve to 7-1, and Welch said the UA’s ban was announced “at a time when the men’s basketball program was having a very successful season.”

In addition, the IARP’s case study said it gave “significant and substantial weight to the meaningful self-imposed penalties” UA had undertaken.

“Further, once there was a realization that a problem existed, Arizona took immediate corrective actions,” the IARP said.

5. UA’s institutional control charge was downgraded.

The IARP listed a total of nine initial NCAA allegations that it struck from the case, including the academic record Phelps had been accused of getting involved with and Miller’s head coach responsibility. It also threw out two charges against the UA swimming and diving program.

In addition, the IARP’s final report did not mention an aggravating factor the NCAA cited in how Robbins and Heeke “compromised the integrity of the investigation.”

Finally, the IARP ruled that Arizona was not guilty of the Level I lack of institutional control charge and instead levied a Level II failure to monitor charge.

Brown said that, too, may have led to the overall case being dropped from a possible Level I-aggravated to a Level I-standard, thus potentially sparing the Wildcats from another year or more of a postseason ban.

“I think they said, `OK, we’ve got aggravating factors and three mitigating factors, and a couple of them are pretty important’ — prompt acknowledgement and acceptance of responsibility, and the imposition of meaningful penalties, which includes the postseason,” Brown said. “I think they gave Arizona credit for those two things, and just came to a conclusion as a panel that `Maybe it was a close case, but we think this should be standard and not aggravated.’ “

As a result, Arizona just has to cut a low six-figure check, deal with a few other minor impositions, and then the whole thing is over.

Finally, the Wildcats’ lives can go on.