A-10: NCAA penalties against UMass ‘unfortunate’

The NCAA is stripping Massachusetts of victories in men’s basketball and women’s tennis for overpaying 12 athletes about $9,100 in financial aid over three years, prompting criticism of the penalty from the Atlantic 10 Conference commissioner.

The NCAA announced Friday the Committee on Infractions had imposed a twoyear probation on UMass that will end October 2022 in addition to vacating results involving athletes who received what were determined to be a total of 13 inappropriate payments.

The school will also pay a self-imposed fine of $5,000.

UMass plans to appeal the committee’s decision to vacate results from 2014-17 that include 59 basketball wins and an Atlantic 10 Conference title in women’s tennis.

A-10 Commissioner Bernadette McGlade and UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford both took issue with the vacation penalty for what the COI conceded was a “misunderstanding,” according to the

NCAA’s news release.

McGlade said the decision was “unfortunate.”

“I think there’s a misappropriation and maybe we are at a point in time where the association (NCAA) needs to have a reset, quite frankly,” McGlade said.

Bamford referred to the violations as mistakes that were “inadvertent and unintentional.”

Kansas’ de Sousa opting out

LAWRENCE, KAN. » Kansas’ Silvio de Sousa is opting out of the upcoming season, potentially ending what has been one of the most controversial tenures of any player to have joined coach Bill Self’s blueblood program.

Self said in a statement that de Sousa was opting out to “focus on matters in his personal life.” Self added that it became clear in recent workouts that de Sousa was distracted, and after the two of them talked recently, “it was clear this was the best decision for him and Kansas basketball to leave the program.”