Kansas probation extended to 2009, scholarships cut

Kansas had placed itself on two years probation following an
investigation by the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions, but
the committee extended that to three years Thursday and made more
severe scholarship cuts than the school had hoped.

The committee cut three football scholarships and one in men's
basketball for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 school years. The school cut
one scholarship last year in football and none in men's basketball,
although it did cut women's basketball scholarships by two for the
2005-06 school year.

Chancellor Robert Hemenway said the school would not appeal, and
noted that Kansas had self-reported its violations.

"The committee has been fair with us and just with us. We trust
the process and we accept the committee's judgment," Hemenway said
at a news conference. "This is a process that proves the integrity
of college athletics, and it is a process that deserves our
respect."

Among the committee's most serious findings was that the former
graduate assistant provided test answers to two prospective junior
college transfers who were taking a correspondence course exam in
his dorm room. Committee member Gene Marsh said in a conference
call with reporters that the investigation found the academic fraud
happened without head coach Mark Mangino's knowledge.

Athletic director Lew Perkins said the committee's findings
would not affect the contract extension Mangino signed in August, a
deal that will pay him a base salary of $200,000 with total
compensation around $1.5 million.

"I don't need to cheat," Mangino said. "That's not how I
operate. I have enough faith in my coaching ability."

The committee also found that a basketball booster, with whom
the university has since severed ties, provided improper benefits
to two players, one of whom was a recruit when the relationship
began.

One of the players, forward Darnell Jackson, served a nine-game
suspension last year for receiving the improper benefits from Don
Davis, who lives in Jackson's hometown of Oklahoma City.

The report also said a former athletic director understaffed the
university's compliance office and told the school's compliance
director, who at the time was juggling that duty with those of the
senior women's administrator, "Compliance doesn't sell tickets."

The report does not mention Bohl by name, but the remark and the
lack of adequate compliance staffing took place while he was in the
position.

"The failure of the institution to adequately staff its
compliance office, the failure of the compliance officer to
adequately perform her duties and the complete breakdown of
communication within the department of athletics demonstrated a
lack of institutional control," the committee's report read in
part.

However, Marsh praised Perkins for beefing up compliance and
taking steps to report violations, including his discovery that
cash payments to senior basketball players who had used up their
eligibility was not allowable under NCAA rules.

"He should be recognized for his good and effective work since
he came on in the summer of 2003," Marsh, a professor at the
University of Alabama, told reporters. "As soon as he took the
job, he pulled in outside help to identify the problem, to get at
the violations and to deal with them."

Rick Evrard, an outside attorney for the university, said Kansas
was not trying to sacrifice its women's program for the sake of its
marquee men's team. Instead, he said, the school made the cuts when
it believed there were violations in the women's program and did
not know about a booster's improper involvement with the men's
team.

"As we were handing the NCAA information about our women's
team, they were handing us information about our men's team,"
Evrard said.

The announcement came eight weeks after a delegation that
included Mangino, basketball coach Bill Self, Hemenway and Perkins
met with the committee at a Baltimore hotel and answered 11 charges
of wrongdoing -- five in football, three in men's basketball, one in
women's basketball, one encompassing 26 secondary violations and
one charge of lack of institution control.

The violations surfaced in July 2005, two years after Perkins
succeeded Bohl as athletic director.

Based on its own investigation, the school admitted, among other
things, to giving prospective football players academic advice and
assistance, allowing them to use athletic department facilities to
complete correspondence work and permitting them to share answers
when completing online courses.

The school also said that under former men's basketball coach
Roy Williams, "three representatives of the University's athletic
interests" provided cash and clothing to graduating players who
had exhausted their eligibility, while members of the women's
basketball staff arranged for housing, transportation and the use
of facilities for potential student-athletes.