NCAA calls out Oklahoma State, sends warning shot to future schools
The NCAA vs. Oklahoma State situation just took another turn.
Thursday night, the NCAA released a blistering statement regarding the aftermath of Oklahoma State’s ban from the 2022 postseason. The punishment came after a 2017 FBI investigation into improper recruiting practices by former assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Lamont Evans.
The statement called Oklahoma State out for comments made about the infractions and calling out committee members by name.
“Oklahoma State personnel encouraged individuals to circumvent the NCAA member-created process that every school agrees to participate in as part of their responsibility to each other,” the statement read, in part. “Further, there is a troubling trend of misstating facts about the infractions process by schools that disagree with the infractions outcomes. Each member has the ability to see change to the Division I infractions process, and there is a review group underway looking at how to improve the process.
“This is also a clear example of the work that needs to be done to address issues and behaviors like this moving forward with the new NCAA Constitution and Division I Transformation process. We know that an adverse decision can be emotional, but personal attacks against individuals simply carrying out their responsibilities are inappropriate, unethical and potentially dangerous.”
How Oklahoma State responded to the decision
Oklahoma State wasn’t supposed to be eligible for the 2020-21 postseason. But the NCAA didn’t get everything resolved with Oklahoma State’s appeal in time, which is how it came about this year.
The decision to uphold the ban sparked an emotional reaction from Cowboys coach Mike Boynton. In his statement, he name-dropped people involved in some way with the decision.
“The message is clear,” Boynton said, via Jacob Unruh of The Oklahoman. “Because we had one $300 violation, no failure to monitor, no lack of institutional control, no recruiting violations, no head coach responsibility, no players playing ineligible, so if you got some of those things going on, don’t do what we did. What we did was we asked them that we work with them through this process.
“On Jan. 20, 2020, I flew to Atlanta to do the first round of this process with the NCAA. The next day, we played OU here. It was important I be there. I went to Atlanta for no reason, to cooperate with them … and then this year on Feb. 7 while in Lawrence, Kansas, for a game, the day we played we had an appeal hearing. And we cooperated and we showed up and we answered their questions and we provided all the information they asked.”