The Arizona Board of Regents privately discussed the University of Arizona’s NCAA Notice of Allegations on Monday but took no action.
The Wildcats were accused of five Level I violations, including a lack of control charge against men’s basketball coach Sean Miller, according to The Athletic, and the school has requested its case be moved outside the NCAA’s standard infractions track and to the Independent Accountability Resolution Process.
During the 90-second public portion of the meeting that was viewable on YouTube, Regents chair Larry Penley said the board would enter the session “for legal advice and discussion regarding the University of Arizona men’s basketball and the NCAA investigation.”
Penley said the Board would not take action and therefore there would be no public session after the meeting. The YouTube feed of their Zoom conference was then stopped.
While Monday’s meeting was a specially arranged executive session after the NCAA delivered its NOA to Arizona last week, the Regents have regularly reviewed the men’s basketball situation with UA president Robert Robbins in executive sessions of standard meetings since the federal investigation into college basketball became public in September 2017.
Arizona confirmed receiving its NOA on Friday but would not release its contents, nor did the Regents. The Star’s multiple public records requests to obtain the NOA have also been unsuccessful so far.
The Athletic listed four of the five Level I charges, saying Miller was charged with a lack of head coach control, while UA was charged with a lack of institutional control and failure to monitor.
The NCAA also levied a lack of head coach control charge on Augie Busch, the women’s swimming and diving coach, whose program has been under NCAA probation since January 2019 for violations under previous head coach Rick DeMont.
What was reportedly a fifth Level I charge has not been reported or disclosed, nor have any lower-level violations, so it remains unclear if Miller was charged with any direct violations or if they only surrounded the actions of his assistants.
Stu Brown, an Atlanta-based attorney who works with schools over NCAA issues, said he didn’t know what was in Arizona’s NOA but said the reporting so far could suggest that Miller was not charged with hands-on violations or being aware of them.
“That would be consistent with UA’s support of him so far in the process after so much internal investigation,” Brown said via email. “It would allow UA to argue that the problems have been fixed by replacing the involved assistant coaches and increasing Sean’s and the university’s monitoring on the current coaching staff.
“Of course, unless/until the actual NOA is made public, that analysis is really just speculation.”
Brown said “the apparent discrepancy in some aspects of the reporting about the NOA and the uncertainty about the swimming allegations” would become clearer if the UA released the actual NOA after the Regent meeting.
After Arizona acknowledged receiving the NOA on Friday, Penley said in a statement that the board recognized that it was another step in a comprehensive enforcement process.
“Maintaining the integrity of the process, while frustratingly slow, has been and remains essential and we look forward to an expeditious resolution,” Penley said. “The board has confidence in (UA) president (Robert) Robbins and his commitment to the highest integrity in academic and athletic matters.”
A request to the Regents seeking comment from Penley after Monday’s meeting was unsuccessful.
Rim shots
- Because of COVID-19 impacts, the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Academics recommended suspending Academic Progress Rate publicity and penalties for two years. The APR is a measure of retention and eligibility, and teams can be held out of a postseason or face other penalties if their APR scores fall below a four-year average minimum.
- ESPN Events canceled plans to move several of its made-for-TV multi-team events to Orlando this season, saying it will hold those tournaments next season. Arizona had been scheduled to play in one of them, the NIT Season Tip-Off, but had already opted to pull out and instead play a homecourt event against Grambling and Sam Houston State.
