Louisville basketball won't face postseason ban in Adidas, Rick Pitino, Brian Bowen scandal

The Louisville men’s basketball team won’t face a postseason ban after a long-running NCAA investigation into alleged violations under the watch of former coaches.

The Independent Accountability Resolution Process (IARP) on Thursday announced its ruling on the Louisville case, hitting the program with a $5,000 fine, recruiting restrictions and a two-year probation that ends Nov. 2, 2024.

The ruling includes no punishments for former U of L coaches Rick Pitino and Chris Mack.

Former Louisville assistants Kenny Johnson and Jordan Fair will be assessed two-year show-cause penalties. Johnson, U of L's former associate head coach and now an assistant at Rhode Island, will be prohibited from recruiting during that period. Show-cause penalties require an NCAA member school to provide reasons why it should not face penalties for hiring a coach.

IARP decisions may not be appealed.

WATCH:U of L AD Josh Heird discuss IARP investigation, penalties

The ruling means the Cardinals under first-year coach Kenny Payne are eligible to play in the 2023 NCAA Tournament if they qualify. Payne and his staff will face recruiting restrictions in the 2022-23 season.

The sanctions include a two-week ban on unofficial visits this season and an additional two-week ban on recruiting communication — "telephone and written correspondence," per the IARP decision — and a seven-day reduction of "recruiting person days" for this academic year.

Louisville also receives a "public reprimand and censure" as part of its punishment. The school's probation will be "publicized by the NCAA on its website, in appropriate publications and in NCAA championship game programs."

Additionally, graduate assistant managers and other noncoaching staff members "are restricted from participation in any on-court practice activities for 10 Louisville men’s basketball practices during the 2022-23 playing and practice season."

How we got here:Louisville men's basketball got handed its punishment by NCAA IARP

And Louisville is "restricted from showing personalized recruiting videos to prospective student-athletes during the remainder of the 2022-23 recruiting calendar."

In a statement shortly before noon, the university thanked the IARP and Benck for being "fair and deliberate" but bemoaned the five years it took for resolution.

"While the IARP process provided the opportunity for our case to be heard by an objective panel, a five-year process is much too long," the statement read. "The process left the University of Louisville’s men’s basketball program in limbo and created significant competitive disadvantages. When allegations in this matter first came to light several years ago, the University took these allegations seriously and acted immediately, enacting several sweeping changes to strengthen our policies and procedures to prevent this from happening again. For our University, the Louisville community, our men’s basketball program and our passionate fans, today marks the beginning of a new chapter and we are only looking forward.”

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Added coach Kenny Payne: "I am grateful for the leadership and effort put in by so many over the last several years to help bring this matter to a close. With this matter behind us, we are only looking ahead as we help our student-athletes achieve their dreams and build this program to the level in which our community can take pride.”

The ruling brings to a close a five-year NCAA investigation into the U of L program, alleged to have committed a total of seven violations under the guidance of former coaches Pitino and Mack. The most severe allegations stem from the Cardinals' recruitment during Pitino's tenure of former five-star prospect Brian Bowen II.

Louisville's disputes:Louisville takes issue with all 7 infractions alleged by NCAA. Here's what that means

The IARP panel found that Fair (Former Assistant Coach 1 in the report) "was knowingly involved in the arrangement to provide recruiting inducements" from Adidas to Bowen, which the panel ruled a Level I violation. However, its stance is that Adidas acted in the interest of its own brand promotion and not in Louisville's athletic interests in making that payment.

The Bowen case has been at the center of the U of L investigation since the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York revealed the bribery scheme behind U of L’s recruitment of Bowen on Sept. 26, 2017.

In December of 2020, U of L — seeking consistency and calling into question the fairness of the NCAA Committee on Infractions — requested that its case be handled by the IARP, a review body formed in 2019 for “reviewing select complex infractions cases,” according to its website, but which the NCAA announced this summer will be dissolved after adjudicating its current cases.

The NCAA’s investigation of U of L, delayed by federal court cases and a second set of allegations arising from Dino Gaudio’s attempted extortion of former Cardinals’ basketball coach Chris Mack, was completed Aug. 6, 2021.

The university received an amended notice of allegations Sept. 30 containing one Level I and six Level II allegations.

The most significant of the allegations against Louisville was that employees of Adidas, representing the university’s athletics interest, made an impermissible recruiting offer of $100,000 and arranged for a $25,000 extra benefit to Bowen's father.

In addition, former Louisville assistant coach Jordan Fair was alleged to have knowingly been involved in an impermissible recruiting inducement of $11,800 to $13,500 to Brad Augustine, a non-scholastic boys basketball coach associated with prospects. And former Louisville assistant coach Kenny Johnson allegedly knowingly provided a $1,300 extra benefit to Bowen’s father.

The violations:Breaking down each of the 7 NCAA violations filed against Louisville basketball

Those violations were considered Level I, the most severe under NCAA bylaws, but Louisville also was alleged to have committed multiple Level II violations.

Johnson and Fair were alleged to have participated in impermissible recruiting activities related to a basketball prospect and individuals associated with basketball prospects, including impermissible in-person off-campus recruiting contact with a prospect; impermissible contact and/or communication with individuals associated with Team United and providing impermissible transportation to Christian Dawkins and Augustine while they accompanied a prospect on an unofficial visit.

The NCAA also alleged that former coach Rick Pitino violated head coach responsibility legislation by failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance within the men’s basketball program, and that U of L violated the NCAA's principle of rules compliance by failing to adequately monitor the recruitment of Bowen.

Louisville also was alleged to have committed Level II violations during the tenure of coach Chris Mack, including using graduate assistants for on-court activities and “producing and showing, playing or providing personalized recruiting videos and recruiting aids to basketball prospects containing the recruits’ names, pictures and/or likenesses.”

This story will be updated.

Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brett Dawson at mdawson@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @BDawsonWrites.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: NCAA, IARP rule on Louisville men's basketball, Pitino, Bowen scandal