It’s been a rough month for college basketball in Tennessee. SI reports: “The NCAA cited Chattanooga for major violations Thursday in its athletics program by failing to monitor phone calls and text messages by coaches to recruits and for the men’s basketball coach’s failure to protect the integrity of the investigation. The Division I Committee on Infractions released its findings after resolving the probe through a summary disposition that did not involve a hearing in Indianapolis. Chattanooga will be publicly reprimanded and censured and placed on probation starting Thursday until Sept. 22, 2012, for 137 impermissible texts and 74 phone calls made to 12 recruits or their families mostly in football and basketball, but also women’s basketball and men’s tennis. The probation penalties do not ban the Mocs from postseason play or from competing on television. The university already has served most of self-imposed penalties. The men’s basketball coaching staff had been banned from contacting recruits between Nov. 15, 2009 and March 15, the loss of one scholarship and recruiters reduced from three to two after March 15. Athletics director Rick Hart said Chattanooga’s compliance program has been growing since being started more than four years ago. ‘We knew we had some weaknesses and we knew we weren’t fully monitoring our programs. We were trying to get there, and as a part of that, we discovered these violations,’ Hart said. ‘We agree with everything that occurred. It’s unfortunate. It’s been a tough process. We’ve learned from it. It’s a tough way to learn.'”
The Mocs played in the NCAA Tournament in 2009.
