Skip to content

NCAA sanctions Ohio State women's hoops, 2 other programs

Mitchell Layton / Getty Images Sport / Getty

Ohio State's athletics department has been given four years probation and hit with other sanctions as a result of self-reported recruiting and policy violations in three women's sports, including basketball.

The other violations, as outlined in a report issued Tuesday by the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions, were in the women's fencing and golf programs between 2015 and 2019. The university had self-reported the violations and in December 2020 imposed a postseason ban for all three sports in 2020-21.

The violations in women's basketball were related to former associate coach Patrick Klein, who in his August 2019 resignation letter admitted he had violated policies with players and recruits.

"As part of his efforts to establish personal relationships with student-athletes, the associate head coach provided them with impermissible benefits, including paying for manicures, loaning money for rental cars, and purchasing textbooks for a student-athlete who was not on scholarship," the report said.

The basketball team will have 52 wins vacated and lose regular-season Big Ten titles in 2017 and 2018, as well as the 2018 conference tournament crown.

Violations found in the other two sports included going over set practice times in golf and inducing fencing recruits by giving them free meals, lessons and access to the Ohio State facility.

Fencing coach Vladimir Nazlymov, who developed the Ohio State program into a national power over his 19 years, retired in 2018. Longtime golf coach Therese Hession, who coached for 30 years and is a member of the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame, retired in January.

“I’m proud of our university, athletics department, and the involved sport programs for our management of this matter,” Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith said in a statement. “We are committed to our proactive and pre-existing system of compliance methods and rules education."

___

More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Daily Newsletter

Get the latest trending sports news daily in your inbox