Georgia Tech basketball hit with NCAA penalties for impermissible benefits

ATLANTA - Georgia Tech men's basketball is banned from the 2019-2020 postseason and will be placed on probation for four years, the NCAA announced Thursday.

The postseason ban is just one punishment for impermissible benefits provided by two Tech boosters. Additional measures for the infractions, per the NCAA, include reduction of one men's basketball scholarship during each year of probation, recruiting restrictions such as official visit restrictions for the probation's length, and a $5,000 fine in addition to 2 percent of the men's basketball budget.

Georgia Tech confirmed it was charged with the violations and resulting penalties later Thursday afternoon.

"As athletics director and an alumnus, I regret and I am embarrassed that these violations occurred at Georgia Tech and agree with the NCAA that these actions have no place in collegiate athletics," athletic director Todd Stansbury said in a school release. "In the two years since I have been back as athletics director, I have been committed to NCAA rules compliance and ethical behavior as an integral part of our culture at Georgia Tech as I have throughout my entire career.  We took swift action when we learned of these rules violations and cooperated fully with the NCAA investigation."

Before its hearing with the NCAA in August, Tech had self-imposed penalties including the $5,000 fine, not allowing two players to participate in the season-opening trip to China in 2017, reducing official visits for men's basketball and a "verbal and written admonishment for head coach Josh Pastner."

The first violation involved the "recruitment of a highly touted prospect," according to the NCAA, in which former assistant coach Darryl LaBarrie arranged for the prospective student-athlete to meet with a booster, a former Georgia Tech basketball player who the NCAA said played for "the local NBA team." That interaction involved a trip to the booster's house, a trip to a strip club, $300 for the recruit and student-athlete host to spend at the club, and "a free meal at a lounge owned by a local NBA player."

"Both sets of violations occurred because men’s basketball coaching staff members invited outside individuals into their program," the NCAA's decision committee said in the release. "They permitted these outside individuals to interact with their student-athletes, and those actions resulted in violations."

The NCAA also said the former assistant coach involved did not cooperate with the investigation himself, and he urged the student-athlete hosting the recruit to lie about what happened.

The NCAA also said Ron Bell, "a friend of the head coach," gave two Georgia Tech men's basketball players and a potential transfer $2,424 in shoes, clothes, meals, transportation and lodging despite the head coach discouraging the booster from doing so.

"When the head coach’s friendship with the booster ended abruptly, the booster informed the head coach about the impermissible benefits provided to the two student-athletes," the NCAA release said. "The head coach immediately notified the associate athletics director and chief compliance officer about the violations when he learned about them."