Baylor basketball on probation until 2010

[Chicago JK]

I wonder if this will effect coach drew. I thought he was a very solid hire, but I wonder if he sticks around? Not sure what a shortened season means?
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Baylor will have to play a shortened men's basketball season in 2005-06 and will remain on probation through 2010, the NCAA announced Thursday in releasing the findings of its investigation into former coach Dave Bliss' scandal-plagued program.

The NCAA allowed Baylor to decide whether it would not include non-conference games, as many as 15 per season if a team plays in an exempted tournament, this year or next. The Bears will be allowed to play the Big 12 Conference regular season and will be eligible for postseason competition.

The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions found intentional violations by coaches and attempts to cover up those violations. That led to a finding of unethical conduct against Bliss and three former assistants.

"The coaches' disregard for NCAA rules has tarnished them, the university and intercollegiate athletics as a whole," said Gene Marsh, the committee chair and a professor of law at the University of Alabama.

The committee slapped Bliss with a show cause procedure for a 10-year period; as a result, any NCAA member institution that intends to hire him must appear before the committee to determine whether it must impose limitations upon Bliss' activities. In addition, one former assistant coach will be subject to a seven-year show cause order and two other former assistants each received five-year show cause orders.

Earlier this month, Carlton Dotson, 23, was sentenced to 35 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in the death of Patrick Dennehy, a killing that led to revelations of wrongdoing in Baylor's program. Dennehy was missing for six weeks before his body was found in July 2003 in a field where the best friends had gone to shoot guns at targets.

By August, Bliss and athletic director Tom Stanton had resigned in the wake of numerous allegations of NCAA violations.

School investigators later discovered that Bliss paid up to $40,000 in tuition for two players and improperly solicited $87,000 from Baylor boosters. The probe also revealed that staff members did not properly report some players' failed drug tests.

The infractions led to self-imposed sanctions, including a three-year probation, reduced scholarships and reduced contact between coaches and recruits. The school also banned itself from postseason play in the 2003-2004 season, and all players were offered a release from their scholarships.

The scandal is the second to rock the program in the last decade.

In 1994, Baylor reduced scholarships, banned itself from postseason play and television appearances and placed itself under a two-year probation after a recruiting and academic fraud scandal under former coach Darrel Johnson.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.