Ohio State’s athletics department has been hit with sanctions – including four years probation – as a result of self-reported recruiting and policy violations in three women’s sports.
Women’s basketball, golf and fencing all reported violations to the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions between 2015 and 2019. The university imposed a postseason ban for all three sports in 2020-21.
The violations in women’s basketball were in relation to former associate coach Patrick Klein, who admitted his violations in an August 2019 resignation letter.
“As part of his efforts to establish personal relationships with student-athletes, the associate head coach provided them with impermissible benefits, including paying for manicures, loaning money for rental cars, and purchasing textbooks for a student-athlete who was not on scholarship,” the report said.
As a result, the basketball team will have 52 of its wins vacated. Additionally, its Big Ten regular season titles in 2017 and 2018 and its 2018 conference tournament championship will be forfeited.
The Buckeyes shared the 2022 regular season crown with Iowa.
In golf, the team was found to have gone over set practice times while fencing recruits were given free meals, lessons and access to the OSU facility.
“I’m proud of our university, athletics department, and the involved sport programs for our management of this matter,” Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith said in a statement. “We are committed to our proactive and pre-existing system of compliance methods and rules education.”