Syracuse Basketball, Football Receives Additional NCAA Sanctions

On Friday, the NCAA handed out additional sanctions to Syracuse men's basketball and football based on its 10-year investigation into the school. The violations, which were self-reported by the school, date back to 2001 and include academic misconduct, extra benefits, the failure to follow its drug testing policy and impermissible booster activity.

Syracuse's penalties include:

• Five years of probation from March 6, 2015 through March 5, 2020.
• Vacation of all wins in which ineligible men's basketball students played in 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2010-11 and 2011-12 and ineligible football students played in 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07. (BC and Syracuse met just once over this span in men's basketball—a 65-60 BC victory—so no vacated SU wins over BC. But this also means the Diamond Ferri game never happened because the NCAA said so, you guys!)
• Suspension of Jim Boeheim from the first nine conference games of 2015-16.
• Reduction of men's basketball scholarship by three for 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19. If Syracuse already has a full scholarship roster for 2015-16, the school may begin the four-year penalty with the 2016-17 year.
• Reduction in the number of permissible off-campus recruiters from four to two during June 1, 2015 through May 31, 2017.
• The panel also accepted the school's self-imposed postseason ban for the 2014-15 season, but noted that self-imposition of penalties after the conclusion of infractions hearings does not influence the outcome.

The NCAA will not impose any further postseason bans. The sanctions also do not affect the men's basketball program's 2003 National Championship even though the violations date back to 2001.

There's obviously a lot here (you can read more about the portions of the report SU agrees with here), and Syracuse will no doubt appeal certain portions of the NCAA's decision. So this matter is far from settled.

The Boeheim suspension and vacated wins aren't that big a deal, really. The token self-imposed postseason ban this season, when Syracuse wasn't making the NCAA Tournament anyway, probably helped stave off any further postseason bans. However, the scholarship reductions in men's basketball are very significant. That's a significant number of the total men's basketball scholarships available (13) and over a four-year period, this could have a significant impact on the immediate future of the Orange men's basketball team.

Perhaps the most eye-opening part of the decision is that Syracuse coach Greg Robinson cheated to get to 10-37 overall, 3-25 in Big East play.

For more reactions on the NCAA's decision, stop by Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician.