Kansas basketball vs. NCAA: Jayhawks are going to fight tooth and nail

The Kansas City Star reported that Kansas basketball should expect major rule violations by the NCAA back on Friday, September 20. Those allegations were received by Kansas today per Yahoo! Sports.

The NCAA has officially charged Kansas basketball with level one violations, as well as lack of institutional control, and it looks like the University is going to fight the NCAA with everything it has. Whether or not Kansas will come out on top will be an interesting story for foreseeable future.

The University of Kansas tweeted its official statement yesterday regarding the allegations:

Folks, this should be a good one.

“We fully support Coach Self and his staff, and we will vigorously defend the allegations against him and our University.” – AD Jeff Long

According to quotes from Bill Self and Jeff Long, Kansas is going to fight the NCAA every step of the way from this point forward, as they should.

Looking at the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations (NOA), it looks like everything will revolve around former Adidas employee T.J. Gassnola and his connection to Kansas basketball.

Gassnola provided money to former Kansas recruit Billy Preston’s mother and Silvio De Sousa’s guardian during his time with Adidas. While that may sound bad, Gassnola testified that the Kansas coaching staff was unaware of the payments. Also, Preston never played a single game for Kansas, and De Sousa was cleared by the NCAA earlier this year, so what’s the problem?

Considering Kansas is being charged with lack of institutional control in the NOA, it looks like the NCAA wants to hold Bill Self and the university responsible for allowing the payments to take place. The NCAA is considering Gassnola a “booster” for the program, in which case Kansas basketball would be responsible for him.

"“Persons of authority condoned, participated in or negligently disregarded the violation or related wrongful conduct.” – NCAA Bylaw 19.9.3-(h)"

However, head coach Bill Self has a much different opinion than that of the NCAA:

"“In its haste and attempt to regain control, the enforcement staff has created a false narrative regarding me and our basketball program. The narrative is based on innuendo, half-truths, misimpressions and mischaracterizations. In reality, we all know there is only one version of the truth.” –  Bill Self"

So, what is the next step for Kansas in this matter? The university will have 90 days (could be extended) to issue its official response to the NCAA. The timing of this whole charade is not ideal, and Kansas will probably be dealing with this throughout and after the 2019-20 basketball season.

The punishments could be a multitude of things depending on what the what sticks and what doesn’t for the NCAA. Bill Self could be suspended, in addition to a loss of scholarships, vacating wins, and postseason bans. Still, there will be quite a bit of time between now and when punishments get handed down.

This will be a heavyweight fight between Kansas basketball and the NCAA that’ll be one for the ages. Nevertheless, there’s still basketball to be played this season. The ultimate display of power for Kansas basketball would be to win the Big 12, and then go on and win the national title despite all the bad publicity.