Georgia Tech athletic director Todd Stansbury is presiding over a distinctive set of basketball teams – neither the men’s nor the women’s teams have made the NCAA tournament since at least 2014 (the men haven’t been there since 2010), and now the women could be joining the men in engaging with the NCAA in a less festive manner.
“It’s not something that I’m happy about, and in my mind, it’s not something that is representative of our program as a whole,” Stansbury said Tuesday of having both basketball teams facing potential NCAA judgement. “And so the sooner we can get to the bottom of whether there are issues or not and work with the NCAA for resolution, the better.”
The possibility of the women’s team joining the men’s was raised after the independent investigation into alleged mistreatment by women’s basketball coach MaChelle Joseph that led to her dismissal Tuesday also uncovered potential NCAA violations.
According to the report from the independent investigation authorized by Tech following the allegations of mistreatment by Joseph, “several players reported conduct that, if true, may constitute potential violations of NCAA rules and regulations.”
Tech has begun a review of the possible violations with the NCAA. That followed the institute being presented in February with the findings of an NCAA investigation into the men’s team that alleged Level-I violations (severe breaches of conduct).
Stansbury said he could not comment on the nature of the violations to preserve the integrity of the investigation. He also did not want to speculate on the possible severity of the possible violations.
“We’re really just in that initial phase of communicating with them and starting to look at what some of those allegations are,” he said.
The allegations were summarized in an appendix to the report. An open-records request for the appendix was denied on the basis of Georgia code that stipulates that public records that are part of an active investigation are not required to be disclosed.
It might not be Stansbury’s chief concern – Joseph has alleged that she was fired not because of the investigation but instead as retaliation for her raising concerns about gender-equity issues and may pursue a lawsuit – but the possibility of an NCAA investigation won’t help the search for Joseph’s replacement.
“Anytime that the NCAA is looking into your program, it is concerning,” Stansbury said. “Of course, we’ve been working with the NCAA for the last 18 months on the issues regarding the men’s team, and we’ll obviously work with the NCAA on anything that we find in this instance, as well.”
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