The defending national champion Kansas Jayhawks have suspended head coach Bill Self and assistant Kurtis Townsend for the first four games of the upcoming 2022-23 season in relation to an FBI investigation into college basketball corruption launched in 2017, Stadium's Jeff Goodman initially reported on Wednesday (November 2).
Self and Townsend were both named in the NCAA's notice of allegations, which accused the Jayhawks men's basketball team of committing five Level I violations stemming from its relationship with Adidas.
The coaches will be absent for Kansas' game against Duke in the Champions Classic on November 15, as well as its two prior regular season games against Omaha (November 7) and North Dakota State (November 10) and the latter game against Southern Utah (November 18).
Assistant coach Norm Roberts -- who has a 105-185 career heading coaching record during stints at Queens College (24-84) and St. John's (81-101) -- will serve as interim head coach in Self's absence.
"Coach Townsend and I accept and support KU's decision to self-impose these sanctions," Self said in a statement obtained by ESPN. "We are in good hands with Coach Roberts, and I am confident that he will do a great job on the bench leading our team. I am proud of the way our guys have handled this situation and I look forward to returning to the bench for our game against NC State."
Kansas opted to turn its infractions case over to the Independent Accountability Resolution Process, notifying the organization's panel of its self-imposed penalties, which also included several recruiting restrictions, some of which had already been imposed prior to Wednesday's announcement.
Self and Townsend had already been prohibited from participating in off-campus recruiting visits from April to July 2022 and the school didn't hold its annual midnight madness 'Late Night in the Phog' event.
Additionally, Kansas basketball will lose three of its scholarships during the next three years and have its official recruiting visits reduced by four, as well as the number of permissible recruiting days by 13 during the upcoming year.
"We are hopeful these difficult self-imposed sanctions will assist in bringing the case to a conclusion," Kansas athletic director Travis Goff said via ESPN. "Until then, we will continue to focus on supporting our outstanding men's basketball student-athletes and coaches. ... Per confidentiality guidelines related to infraction cases, we are unable to comment in depth until there is full resolution of this matter."
Kansas is coming off its fourth national championship in program history and its second since Self began his tenure in 2003.
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