Purdue's men's basketball program hit with NCAA sanctions

The NCAA Committee on Infractions ruled the university violated rules regarding recruiting, extra benefits and ethical conduct in the men's basketball program, in addition to several secondary violations in the women's basketball program. As part of the school's penalty, it will have to repay up to 90 percent of the revenues generated from the Boilermakers' appearance in the 1996 men's NCAA tournament, and an assistant men's basketball coach was banned from off-campus recruiting for a year. Purdue was spared possible sanctions that would have left them ineligible for future NCAA tournament berths or televised appearances. But the Boilermakers will lose a scholarship for the 2000-01 and 2000-02 academic years, limiting the men's basketbal program to 12 scholarships for those seasons. The university also will be limited to four paid recruiting campus visits during the 1999-2000 and 2000-01 seasons. Also, all team and individual records from the 24 games during the 1995-96 season in which an ineligible athlete participated will be vacated. That includes their NCAA tournament appearance that season, when Purdue, a No. 1 seed, was eliminated by Georgia in the second round. The committee penalized Purdue, in part, for a 1995 loan that an assistant coach arranged for a prospective player to receive $4,000 through a representative of the university athletic interests. The loan was never repaid, minimal effort was made to collect the balance and eventually the loan was charged off by the bank after the player left for another institution following the 1995-96 academic year. Last fall, athletic director Morgan Burke said Purdue found no evidence to support allegations about the loan. But the NCAA found the loan was unsecured, given to a player with no credit history and lacked a cosigner. Purdue officials said they had no immediate comment on the NCAA sanctions, which have come on the heels of the controversy surrounding Minnesota's basketball program. The NCAA began a preliminary inquiry into the allegations with interviews at the school in the summer of 1997 and expanded it in March 1998. Kendrick was fined an undisclosed amount of money and forbidden to recruit off campus for 10 days during the official recruiting period that began in November 1996. The NCAA, which did not mention Kendrick by name in the report, said an assistant coach involved in the recruiting violations would be subject to NCAA ''show-cause'' requirements for one year. The penalty allows the committee to determine whether the individual's athletic duties should be limited for a specified time. In December 1996, Burke said coach Gene Keady and Kendrick inadvertently violated NCAA rules by making 15 telephone calls to Davis, who later signed with the Boilermakers, but did not play as a freshman because of academic ineligibility. Davis played in 12 games as a sophomore last season, then quit the team in December.

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