FAILED NCAA GUIDELINES - The National Collegiate Athletic Association , (the NCAA ) says Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas will vacate 289 wins and conference championships across multiple sports as punishment for inaccurately certifying players’ academic eligibility from 2013-2019.
According to a statement from the SFA Athletics this spring they discovered the process that certified student-athletes being ruled as academically eligible was not meeting all NCAA requirements as former staffers were incorrectly counting all semester credit hours instead of counting only degree-applicable credits. As a result 82 student-athletes were improperly certified over the six-year period.
Ryan Ivey, current SFA Athletics Director had this to say to KETK Sports News:
"If you want to say the definition of being unfair, I mean it's not fair to our current student athletes, it's not fair to our coaches," Ivey said. "But it's the reality of the situation and the reality of the system that we're in."
So any win where SFA used an ineligible player during 2013-2019 would be officially vacated from the record books. This includes: 117 men’s basketball wins (including the 2016 NCAA tournament win over West Virginia) , 112 baseball victories, 31 softball wins, 29 football wins and three men’s basketball conference championships. There are other sanctions involving probation, fines and considerable fines.
