Ole Miss basketball hit with penalties for tampering infractions
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The Ole Miss men’s basketball program was penalized on Friday afternoon because of tampering violations that occurred, with former assistant coach Wes Flanigan being at the center of the infractions.
The Division I Committee on Infractions panel released findings of Flanigan having “impermissible recruiting conversations with the advisor of a student-athlete from another school who had not entered the transfer portal.”
According to the findings on Ole Miss, current head coach Chris Beard is responsible for the tampering violations “but did not receive any penalties because he demonstrated that he was not aware of the violations and that he promoted compliance.”
Ole Miss was found to have failed to monitor its athletics program after it did not disassociate with a booster who had been involved with Ole Miss’s previous infractions case, “as required by the penalties in the Committee on Infractions’ 2017 decision.”
There was agreement between Ole Miss, Beard, Flanigan and the enforcement staff “that the violations in this case occurred after Flanigan knowingly communicated with a known advisor to a student-athlete at another school who was not in the NCAA Transfer Portal.”
The findings on Flanigan were that he spoke on the phone with that advisor a total of 16 times and also sent 10 text messages.
All parties agreed that “Beard was automatically responsible for the violations due to head coach responsibility legislation.”
However, Beard was not “personally involved in the violations, was not aware of the impermissible contact and promoted an atmosphere for compliance.” Because of that, all parties were in agreement that Bears should not receive any penalties.
The enforcement staff and Ole Miss also did not find that “any individual athletics department staff members knowingly violated the requirements of the disassociation penalty; however, the parties agreed that the school did not monitor its athletics department as a result of the violations.”
Among the list of penalties that were approved by the Committee on Infractions were:
- Two years of probation
- A $455,000 fine
- A one-week ban on all recruiting communications for the men’s basketball program, served during the 2025-26 academic year
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
