Texas A&M hit with NCAA violations, Buzz Williams suspended two games

The Texas A&M men’s basketball program violated numerous NCAA rules, the Division I Committee on Infractions announced Friday.

According to the release, the university, head coach Buzz Williams, an assistant coach and the NCAA enforcement staff agreed that the school violated multiple NCAA recruiting rules.

“Specifically, the head coach had impermissible contact with a prospect during an evaluation period,” the release said. “The assistant coach violated NCAA rules when he observed a prospect participating in an open gym during an unofficial visit and later conducted two 45-minute tryouts with that prospect, during which he provided coaching instruction.”

The assistant coach also impermissibly conducted approximately 24 supervised, off-campus workouts with a prospect and several men’s basketball student-athletes. The workouts were prohibited due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On several occasions, the assistant coach arranged for noncoaching staff members to supervise and conduct the workouts, exceeding permissible limits for countable coaches.

Williams also allowed six noncoaching staff members to participate in on-court activities and engage in skills instruction, exceeding NCAA countable coaches by three.

The agreement states that Williams violated head coach responsibility rules when he did not promote an atmosphere of compliance because of his personal involvement in the violations and because he did not monitor his staff’s involvement in violations.

Here is the complete list of penalties handed down to the program:

• Two years of probation.
• A $5,000 fine.
• A reduction in men’s basketball official visits for the 2021-22 academic year by five.
• A suspension of unofficial visits during the first three Southeastern Conference men’s basketball games during the 2021-22 academic year.
• A reduction in men’s basketball recruiting days by 5% (7 days out of 130) during the 2021-22 academic year.
• A two-game suspension (during the regular season) for the head coach at Texas A&M or any school that employs him.
• A suspension of the assistant coach, self-imposed by the university, June 2020 through the end of the 2020-21 basketball season. During that suspension, the program operated with one fewer assistant coach than allowed under NCAA rules.

Shame, shame, shame. Can’t be doing that.