Kansas officials meet with NCAA to prevent harsh penalties

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Kansas officials met with the NCAA for about seven hours Sunday in an effort to head off any harsher penalties than those the Jayhawks have already imposed on themselves for rules infractions.

A delegation including football coach Mark Mangino, basketball coach Bill Self, athletic director Lew Perkins and chancellor Robert Hemenway met with the NCAA infractions committee in the Tremont Plaza Hotel in Baltimore, answering 11 charges of wrongdoing.

The school's only public comment was a brief statement by Hemenway praising the committee for providing a fair hearing and saying a decision by the NCAA was expected in five to seven weeks.

Shortly after Perkins succeeded Al Bohl as athletic director two years ago, Kansas began an internal probe of violations that allegedly occurred during 1997-2003. The school self-reported violations involving football and men's and women's basketball, then put itself on probation for two years and reduced scholarships in both football and women's basketball.

After conducting its own investigation, the NCAA added the potentially serious charge of lack of institutional control during that six-year period. Also worrisome to Kansas is the label "academic fraud" the NCAA has put on violations that occurred in the football program.

Potentially, the NCAA could order further scholarship reductions, recruiting restrictions and a ban on postseason appearances by the football and basketball team.

NCAA officials never comment about ongoing investigations.

"I don't think it would be productive to speculate on how the committee reacted to our presentation," Hemenway said. "Our focus now is that this chapter is over. We can now move forward confident that the changes we've made in the area of compliance will help prevent us from going through this again."

Hemenway said the university would not comment further on the NCAA investigation until the committee announces its decision in about six weeks.