The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Benedict discusses self-imposed sanctions
STORRS — The selfimposed sanctions on its men’s basketball program that UConn revealed publicly on Friday could mean an extra year on Dan Hurley’s contract.
At this point, the ball is in Hurley’s court.
“It’s something that Dan actually would want to trigger. It’s up to him,” athletic director David Benedict said on Saturday, prior to the Huskies’ bout with Tulane. “Those are conversations we’re having.”
Hurley’s contract is a six-year deal, worth about $3 million per year. However, with UConn under NCAA investigation at the time of his hire in March, a clause was included that would add an extra year to his deal if the program was hit with any sanctions.
While currently the only sanctions UConn is facing are self-imposed, they would still apparently trigger the extra year if Hurley agrees.
Benedict met with the media for about 10 minutes on Saturday. He said the next step in the process would be to meet with the NCAA Committee on Infractions, which would probably happen within the next 2-3 months — maybe longer. He couldn’t answer whether he believed the NCAA would agree that the self-imposed penalties were enough, or that the violations that occurred under Kevin Ollie’s watch merited stricter discipline.
He also couldn’t figure a guess on how much the NCAA investigation has affected the university’s public image.
“That would be hard to measure in totality. All I can say is that, if you look around the country and consider other programs that have had challenges, albeit maybe different than what we’re having to deal with right now, other universities have been through it, and have certainly rebounded well. This is something we’d prefer not to be dealing with right now, but we are, and we’re gonna handle it the best way we possibly can and move forward.”
Benedict said that Hurley wasn’t aware, at the time of his hire, of the scope of the self-imposed sanctions — which include a loss of a scholarship for next season, recruiting restrictions and a small fine.
“At that time, we didn’t necessarily know what the penalties should or would be,” Benedict said. “So that’s something that we obviously would work with our outside counsel on, we look at former or previous case precedent and see what the penalties were with those cases. Then, you make a decision. Obviously, this is just our attempt to establish penalties that we believe were consistent with the violations. However, that’s certainly something the Committee on Infractions will review, and they have the right to make a different decision.”
Benedict wouldn’t respond to any questions about the Ollie contract situation. Asked if Ollie would still have his job had the team been winning the past couple of seasons, he said he wouldn’t respond to “hypothetical questions.”
He did give some praise to Hurley.
“I’m very happy with the effort that not just Coach Hurley, but his entire staff is making to coach up this group of kids. Not just from a standpoint of basketball but also in all the other aspects of what they’re responsible for. So, I’m very pleased with their effort.”
BUDGET PROBLEMS
Benedict was asked about a recent report that the university’s athletics department is running at about a $40 million deficit.
He said it shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise, considering the Big East money that UConn and the other former Big East teams got when the conference split up six years ago is drying up and will be non-existent next year. Benedict also noted that the school had to renegotiate its multi-media rights deal with IMG for a lower price recently, and that ticket sales have suffered due to poor performances from several different teams.
“Is it sustainable longterm, at this level? That’s for other people to make that decision,” Benedict said. “Certainly, one of the things that I’ve come to learn about UConn and the state of Connecticut since I’ve been here is that there is a strong belief — that I think the majority of people share — that the university is what it is, not just because of our academic success, but because of the athletic success we’ve achieved. In combination, we’ve created a nationally renowned university .”
But he added that the school had to look at how the athletic department was structured, and wouldn’t rule out the possibility of eliminating certain sports.
“That’s a really tough decision. There are a lot of athletic departments over the last few years that have had to do that. It’s probably one of the most difficult things you could do. As an athletic department, we’re gonna look at all opportunities to try to deal with this prior to that. But, sometimes there are nevitabilities.”
He added that the American Athletic Conference’s new media rights deal, which should be completed sometime over the next 18 months, could provide “a source of opportunity to help us really make a dent in that number.”