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Hart shoulders blame for Tyndall messWiedmer: Hart should follow Tyndall out UT door Tennessee Vols potential coaching candidates
KNOXVILLE -- Donnie Tyndall's 339th day as the men's basketball coach at the University of Tennessee began with an early-morning meeting with athletic director Dave Hart.
Tyndall soon learned he would not be back for a second season in charge of the program.
An NCAA investigation into academic misconduct and impermissible financial aid allegedly occurred under Tyndall's watch the previous two seasons at Southern Mississippi. With things now coming to a head, it ultimately forced Tennessee's hand, and Tyndall had his contract terminated by the university Friday morning.
"One of the things we have strived for is to get stability, and we had hoped when we hired Donnie we would have that element in our men's basketball program," Hart said at his news conference late Friday morning. "That is not how it has panned out as we stand here today. Having said that, this decision was the right decision for the University of Tennessee."
One year ago today, the Volunteers played in the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament under then-coach Cuonzo Martin. The program now is looking for its third basketball coach in as many seasons.
"It's gotten old," Hart said as Tennessee enters its fifth coaching change in football or men's basketball since 2008. "Now we've stabilized in several areas, but then here we go again in a key transition. I understand that frustration and the feelings that are out there."
Three days after Tyndall coached his first exhibition game for the Vols, Southern Miss confirmed the NCAA had launched a probe into its program back in November.
The investigation cost Tyndall two members of his staff, whom he'd brought with him to Tennessee, and two months later forced the Golden Eagles to self-impose a postseason ban and rule ineligible two of the players Tyndall recruited to Southern Miss.
It has now cost Tyndall his job and will put his career on hold.
"I am extremely saddened by my separation from Tennessee," Tyndall said in a statement released through his lawyer. "In the past months, I learned that violations of NCAA rules occurred in the Southern Miss men's basketball program when I was that program's head coach. That surprised and disappointed me.
"During my time at Southern Miss, I believed that our program followed NCAA rules and worked well with the university's administration to maintain an atmosphere of rules compliance. ... As the head coach at that time, I accept ultimate responsibility for violations that occurred.
"I apologize to my players, assistant coaches and the entire UT community that past occurrences led to today's result."
Hart, who often was publicly supportive of Tyndall as the Vols went 16-16 and finished 10th in the Southeastern Conference this season, said the university knew of some possible outcomes to the situation and hoped for the best-case scenario to play out.
After Tennessee's brass, including Hart, spoke to NCAA officials Thursday, it was clear that wouldn't be the case, and Hart made his decision late Thursday night.
"We were hoping for a lot better outcome, of course, than the one we got," Hart said. "In our most recent opportunity to converse and communicate with the appropriate people is when we made the decision that this is what we need to do."
Tyndall's contract stipulated that if he were found to have committed major NCAA rules violations at Tennessee or another program, Tennessee could fire him with cause and not have to pay him the $3 million he otherwise would be owed if fired before March 15, 2017.
According to the termination agreement between the two parties, Tennessee felt it was "highly likely" Tyndall would face major violations relating to NCAA bylaw 11.1.1.1, which holds head coaches responsible for all the actions of the program's assistant coaches, graduate assistants and other staffers.
During his second meeting with NCAA investigators on March 16, Tyndall acknowledged that he deleted emails from an account he maintained "at a prior institution" in November on the same day he first met with the NCAA, according to the agreement.
"You knew that e-mails sent to and from that e-mail account were the subject of questioning by the NCAA enforcement staff on November 18, 2014," the agreement stated, "and that the NCAA would be requesting you and/or the prior institution to provide copies of e-mails from that e-mail account."
Deleting emails that "could have been relevant" to the NCAA investigation "created an appearance of significant impropriety," according to the agreement.
Tennessee believed, according to the agreement, that Tyndall deleting the emails would bring a failure-to-cooperate charge from the NCAA, which is another major violation.
"I support the action taken today," Tennessee Chancellor Jimmy Cheek said in a released statement. "I know this is disappointing for our fans. It's disappointing for all of us, but we have a responsibility to our student-athletes and our university to do the right thing. We will find a great coach who will uphold the traditions of the Tennessee Volunteers."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.