Larry Brown's third foray into college basketball is following the exact same pattern as the first two did more than a quarter century ago.
Spectacular success, followed quickly by severe NCAA violations.
The NCAA announced Tuesday that it has banned SMU from the 2016 postseason, suspended Brown for 30 percent of the upcoming season and stripped the Mustangs of nine scholarships over the next three seasons. Brown also received a two-year show-cause penalty for failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance.
The penalties stem from an NCAA investigation into whether former SMU assistant Ulric Maligi and a former basketball administrator helped ex-McDonald's All-American Keith Frazier with the coursework he needed to become eligible to play for the Mustangs.
The NCAA found that an SMU assistant encouraged Frazier to enroll in an online course necessary for him to meet initial eligibility standards to be admitted to the university. Then the administrative assistant obtained Frazier's username and password and completed his coursework, enabling him to play for the Mustangs as a freshman during the 2013-14 season.
What also contributed to the severity of SMU's punishment is that Brown and his staff were allegedly not forthright when approached by NCAA investigators.
The NCAA accused the administrative assistant of initially providing false information during her interviews and later refusing to interview again or provide documents requested by enforcement staffers. Brown did not learn of the misconduct until 2014, according to the NCAA, but he did not report it to SMU's compliance staff for more than a month and he initially denied having any information to NCAA investigators.
All that was clearly enough to make the NCAA feel comfortable wielding a sledge hammer to punish SMU because these penalties are no slap on the wrist.
The postseason ban is the most painful in the short term because SMU returns three starters from last year's 27-win team and had been expected to spar with UConn and Cincinnati for first place in the American Athletic Conference. The scholarship penalties could be crippling in the long term as the Mustangs won't be allowed to have more than 10 scholarship players for three straight seasons.
SMU's administrators have to shoulder some of the responsibility for this mess because they knew the risks when they hired Brown three years ago.
Brown led UCLA to the 1980 national title game, but the Bruins were put on probation for two years after the NCAA found players had received impermissible benefits. Brown led Kansas to a national title in 1988, but the Jayhawks were banned from postseason play the following year due to recruiting violations.
When SMU hired Brown in April 2012, school officials were eager to bring in a splashy name capable of raising the basketball program's profile in time for its move to the higher-profile American Athletic Conference the following year. SMU attempted and failed to land the likes of Buzz Williams, Tommy Amaker and Rick Majerus during an overly ambitious coaching search before settling on Brown as its leading candidate.
The boom-or-bust gamble paid off in some respects as SMU instantly became a factor for recruits it once couldn't get to return phone calls, reached the NIT title game in Brown's second year and ended a 23-year NCAA tournament drought last March.
But success under Brown has always led to NCAA investigators poking around on campus. And this time, the NCAA wasn't gentle either.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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