HARTFORD, Conn. _ Former UConn men's basketball coach Kevin Ollie is facing an unethical conduct charge among other violations from the NCAA, according to a report from ESPN.
Ollie, who was fired shortly after the end of the 2017-18 season, received a notice from the NCAA Friday claiming that the former coach provided "false or misleading information" about phone calls between former Huskies Ray Allen and Rudy Gay and a recruit, according to the report.
In addition, the notice of allegations also accuses Ollie of other violations including exceeding practice times, providing unfair recruiting benefits and "failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance," the ESPN report stated.
The Hartford Courant requested the document per the Freedom of Information Act in August., but it had not been provided as of Friday.
On March 11, two days after the season ended, UConn announced it was initiating disciplinary action for the purpose of terminating Ollie's employment as head coach for "just cause," meaning it would not have to pay him the remaining $10 million on his contract. Ollie immediately announced his intention to contest the firing through the professors' union, of which coaches are members at state schools, and the long, acrimonious legal battle ensued, often playing out in the form of public statements from UConn and Ollie's lawyers. Ollie was technically suspended with pay as the process continued.
Meanwhile, Dan Hurley was hired to replace Ollie on March 22.
UConn revealed its reasons for firing Ollie in a letter in March, which was part of more than 1,350 documents it released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Ollie's attorneys and the media in June. UConn's justification included three infractions of NCAA rules: Ollie's shooting baskets with a recruit on an official visit; facilitating a call from Allen, potentially considered a booster, to a recruit on an official visit; and having knowledge of impermissible workouts with an outside trainer, Derrek Hamilton, on campus and in Atlanta.
AD David Benedict's decision to fire Ollie for just cause based on these violations was upheld in appeals to Benedict and UConn president Susan Herbst and is now headed to arbitration. An arbitrator is to decide whether these violations rise to the levels constituting just cause that are spelled out in Ollie's contract and the collective bargaining agreement between UConn and the school's chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
Herbst asserted in her letter to Ollie, upholding the decision, that UConn had enough evidence of noncompliance to act without waiting for the NCAA to release its findings. However, now that the findings and the possibility of sanctions have been made public, it could bolster UConn's argument to fire the coach for just cause.
The NCAA began investigating UConn men's basketball about a year ago, about the same time as the FBI released some of the findings of its investigation into bribery and fraud in college basketball, but the two investigations are apparently unrelated.
UConn conducted its own review of the program, as all major programs were urged by the NCAA to do, retaining the law firm of Lightfoot, Franklin and White.
The NCAA's inquiry into UConn men's basketball became known in January, and the Courant reported that it involved general recruiting practices and several recruits, some of whim did not come to UConn. By the spring, the NCAA had conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with coaches, players and other figures outside the program. In June, UConn released more than 900 pages of transcripts from those interviews, those involving its own players, coaches and staffers. The questioning involved recruiting practices, and the activities of several staffers to determine if they had been involved in coaching or recruiting activities that are limited by rules to certified members of the coaching staff.
Among those interviewed was Glen Miller, fired by Ollie as associate head coach in March 2017. The most damaging allegation came from Miller, that he had heard from his wife that Ollie had provided $30,000 to the mother of a UConn player, allowing her to move to Connecticut. That was unsubstantiated at the time the documents were released, and Ollie's lawyers have threatened to sue UConn for releasing them without redacting unsubstantiated allegations.
