Tracking Reported NCAA Investigation of Southern Miss Basketball

Southern Miss basketball has found themselves the subject of an NCAA investigation regarding alleged policy violations during the Donnie Tyndall era at the school.

Continue for updates.

Thursday, Nov. 13

Tyndall Will Meet With NCAA Investigators

ESPN's Jeff Goodman reports that current Tennessee and former Southern Miss head coach Donnie Tyndall will meet with NCAA investigators:

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Tennessee coach Donnie Tyndall is expected to meet with the NCAA on Tuesday, sources told ESPN.com.

Tyndall is being investigated by the NCAA for potential issues related to his tenure at Southern Mississippi. Tyndall spent two seasons at Southern Miss, taking the program to the NIT in 2013 and 2014 before being hired at Tennessee this past offseason.

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Gary Parrish of CBS Sports reported more on Tyndall and his role in the investigation:

Thursday, Nov. 6

Tennessee men's basketball coach Donnie Tyndall will cooperate with NCAA investigators if asked about alleged policy violations under his watch at Southern Mississippi, the ex-Golden Eagles coach told reporters Thursday.

"First of all I'm sure most of you have questions about the NCAA deal at Southern Miss," Tyndall told reporters. "All I'm going to say and can say is, if I'm asked to cooperate I will cooperate 100 percent. And that's all I will say and can say about it at this time."    

Tyndall was responding to a report from Bleacher Report's Jason King, who indicated that college sports' governing body was investigating his former program. A source close to the investigation told King the NCAA was looking into how "tuition, living expenses and other fees were paid for 'Prop 48' recruits who signed with the Golden Eagles but were academically ineligible out of high school or junior college."

Prop 48 allows for ineligible players to take classes at their university to get their grades up. The NCAA is looking into how the players funded their education before their scholarships kicked in. As noted by King, current Golden Eagles Shadell Millinghaus, Matt Bingaya and Davon Hayes are among the Prop 48 players recruited by Tyndall.

Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press

Southern Miss director of athletics Bill McGillis issued a statement Thursday in response, confirming the university was working with the NCAA.

“The university is working together with the NCAA to review potential issues related to our men’s basketball program," said McGillis, per Kami Mattioli of Sporting News. "In order to maintain the integrity of our joint process, and pursuant to NCAA policy, we cannot comment further regarding any details of our review at this time.”

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Tyndall, 44, replaced Cuonzo Martin as the head coach at Tennessee in April after two seasons at Southern Miss. The Golden Eagles went 56-17 in his tenure and won the Conference USA regular-season championship last season. However, they failed to earn an NCAA tournament berth in both campaigns and had to settle for consecutive NIT berths.

Before joining Southern Mississippi, Tyndall was the head coach for six seasons at Morehead State. Tyndall's program was placed under a two-year probationary period at Morehead in 2010 after NCAA investigators found illegal activity from boosters. Tyndall told Patrick Brown of the Chattanooga Times Free Press that he "never" expected one of his programs to be investigated by the NCAA again.

Tennessee athletics spokesperson Jimmy Stanton told the Knoxville News Sentinel that the university is aware of the investigation but will not be commenting further, citing NCAA policy. Stanton did, however, note that a potential investigation did not arise when vetting Tyndall for the Volunteers job.   

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