COLOMBIA – The NCAA Infringement Committee received South Carolina’s response to the letter of allegations it sent to USC in February.
USC athletics department sources confirmed on Friday that the USC met with the NCAA and sent a summary to the IOC. The IOC now needs to process the material, analyze it and schedule a hearing or issue a decision.
Former assistant basketball coach Lamont Evans has been accused of taking bribes from a representative in an attempt to direct former playmaker PJ Dozier to a sports agency. Still, Dozier, USC and coach Frank Martin are accused of any wrongdoing, which means that the program’s biggest achievement, the 2017 Final Four, should not be in danger of being eliminated from the record.
The USC is one of several schools in the NCAA’s sights related to the bribery scandal that shook college basketball in 2017, but the infractions of which it is accused are minor compared to many.
However, the first sentence given to a school under investigation harmed a school that also employed Evans. Evans left USC for the state of Oklahoma and was also accused of taking bribes there.
Oklahoma was banned from the 2020-21 postseason, lost three scholarships among numerous other recruitment restrictions, and received three years of probation. The school is attractive.
The next basketball season, assuming there are no delays due to the pandemic, is scheduled to start in November.
Follow David Cloninger on Twitter @DCPandC.