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Oklahoma State University’s men’s basketball team and athletics department were punished by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for a bribery scheme conducted by Lamont Evans, the team’s former associate head coach, the association announced Friday. Evans was sentenced to three months in prison in June 2019 for his participation in the scheme, which he also conducted at the University of South Carolina, ESPN reported.
The scheme, which was originally uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in September 2017, involved Evans receiving up to $22,000 in bribes from financial advisers to direct college athletes to hire the advisers when they began playing professionally for the National Basketball Association, according to a press release from the NCAA. The association’s rules prohibit athletic staff members from receiving payment for facilitating meetings between athletes and third -arty agents or advisers, the press release said.
The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions found Evans responsible for Level I-aggravated infractions, due to his lack of cooperation with the committee during their review, and issued a 10-year restriction on Evans’s athletically related duties if he were to be hired at another college. The men’s basketball team will be prohibited from participating in 2020-21 postseason competition and the university self-imposed a fine of $10,000 plus 1 percent of the men’s basketball program’s budget, the press release said. Oklahoma State athletics will also be on probation for three years and will lose three of its men’s basketball scholarships from 2020 to 2023, along with other recruiting limitations.
“As the associate head coach admitted in his sentencing hearing, he abused this trust for his own personal gain,” a statement from the committee said. “He sold access to student-athletes and used his position as a coach and mentor to steer them toward a career decision -- retaining the financial advisors’ services -- that would financially benefit him. In short, he put his interests ahead of theirs.”
Oklahoma State said in a statement to ESPN that the university would appeal the committee's decision, calling the penalties "unfair" and "unjust."
"The university is stunned by the severity of the penalties and strongly disagrees with them," the statement said. "The NCAA agreed with OSU that Lamont Evans acted alone and for his own personal gain … The NCAA also agreed that OSU did not benefit in recruiting, commit a recruiting violation, did not play an ineligible player, and did not display a lack of institutional control. As the report documents, OSU cooperated throughout the process, which lasted two years."
