CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Miami's football team will lose a total of nine scholarships and the men's basketball team will lose three, as part of the penalties the school was handed Tuesday by the NCAA as the Nevin Shapiro scandal presumably drew to a close.
Both of those scholarship losses will be stretched out over three years. But for the first time since 2010, the football team will be permitted to appear in a postseason game.
"It's relief that we finally have a decision," Miami President Donna Shalala told The Associated Press. "It's been a long haul. But I don't have any anger or frustration."
The school will also serve three years of probation. Former men's basketball coach Frank Haith, now at Missouri, will sit out the first five games of his team's upcoming season as punishment for his involvement with the former booster, and three former Miami football and basketball assistant coaches were handed two-year show-cause bans.
"This case is among the most extraordinary in the history of the NCAA," said Britton Banowsky, the Conference USA commissioner who chairs the Committee on Infractions, speaking on a Tuesday morning teleconference.
Even though the NCAA said Miami lacked "institutional control" when it came to monitoring Shapiro, the university is accepting the decision and does not plan to appeal. The infractions committee also said that the Hurricanes' decision to self-impose sanctions was wise, with Banowsky calling them "a big deal."
