Oklahoma State University has become the first school to be punished by the NCAA in the fallout from the federal corruption investigation into men’s college basketball.
The school plans to fight – and it likely won’t be the only one.
The Cowboys were banned from the upcoming postseason among numerous penalties handed down Friday by an NCAA infractions committee panel, which found former assistant coach Lamont Evans accepted up to $22,000 in bribes intended to help steer athletes to certain financial advisers.
That ruling made Oklahoma State the first to make its way fully through the infractions system, ahead of schools including Louisville, Kansas, North Carolina State, South Carolina and Southern California. Some of those cases have already had contentious exchanges signaling the schools were ready to fight.
That list now includes Oklahoma State, which vowed to appeal after being “stunned by the severity of the penalties.”