Auburn men's basketball will be subject to four years of probation from 2021 to 2025, per a ruling from the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions released Friday.
Head coach Bruce Pearl will be suspended two games — Saturday against Nebraska and Tuesday, Dec. 14, against North Alabama — as part of the ruling.
Auburn’s probation comes over 1,300 days after the arrest of former player and coach Chuck Person. Person was charged in September 2017 and was arrested in March 2019 after the two-year long probe into Person taking money to facilitate players to certain financial advisors.
In total, Person profited $91,500 in bribes. Two former players, Austin Wiley and Danjel Purifoy, were involved in the bribes and were sat out a full season as punishment.
Current Auburn star Jabari Smith was just 14 years old at the time of the original investigation. The only player enrolled in college at the time of the 2017 FBI probe was point guard Zep Jasper.
Auburn must also reduce its number of scholarships given out by two total scholarships over the probation period. The team will also forfeit $5,000 and 3% of the men's basketball budget.
The NCAA accepted Auburn’s self-imposed post-season ban last season as part of its ruling, making Auburn eligible for post season play every year during its probation period.
"I'm appreciative of Auburn University, our leadership, the AU family and our current and former student-athletes as we navigated through the challenges of the last four years," Pearl said in a statement. "We respect the NCAA peer evaluation process and appreciate the panel recognized we took meaningful and contemporaneous penalties. It is time to put this behind us. As part of our penalty, I will begin my two game suspension against Nebraska."
Auburn University said in a statement that it will accept the penalties handed down by the NCAA.
"We are pleased that a conclusion has been reached in this case," Auburn University said in a statement. "For the last four years, Auburn has been proactive and cooperative with the NCAA enforcement staff and Committee on Infractions. We have been and will continue to be committed to NCAA rules compliance. As such, we accept all penalties and are ready to move forward."
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Henry Zimmer is from Jacksonville, Florida, and is currently in his fifth year with The Plainsman. He is currently the Sports Reporter and can be followed on Twitter here: @henryzimmer
