Auburn freshman guard Bryce Brown will not play against UAB on Friday because of an NCAA violation, head coach Bruce Pearl announced on Thursday.
Brown is suspended for one game for playing in an additional summer league game in Atlanta. Brown attended the game as a spectator, but one of the teams did not have enough players. Brown knew the coach, so the coach asked him to play.
Brown played one game in the Birmingham summer league before playing in the Atlanta summer league game.
“(Brown) was told that he can only play in one NCAA-approved summer league, but I’m sure he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong,” Pearl said.
Pearl acknowledged that NCAA rules must be followed, but he was upset by the NCAA’s suspension of the freshman guard. He believes that Brown simply was asked to play a basketball game, so he did, not fully aware that it’s an NCAA violation.
“The other thing is, we did self-report it,” Pearl said. “Not that that’s automatically a factor, but we did self-report it. I’m disappointed with the decision, but those are the rules and we’ll play by them.”
A video from AuburnTigers.com profiling Brown:
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