Kevin Ollie May Get Hit With A Show-Cause Penalty As His Fight With UConn Gets Uglier

[ESPN] - The NCAA has levied an unethical conduct charge against former Connecticut men’s basketball coach Kevin Ollie and other violations that could lead to a lengthy show-cause penalty, six months after the university fired him for just cause.

The most severe claim, per the initial notice of allegations sent to Ollie and the school on Friday that was obtained by ESPN, is a Level I unethical conduct charge for Ollie, who the NCAA alleges provided false or misleading information about phone calls between NBA legend Ray Allen, San Antonio Spurs guard Rudy Gay and a top recruit.

The NCAA also said Ollie falsely denied he had knowledge of professional trainer and friend Derek Hamilton’s workouts with players.

Per the initial notice of allegations, Ollie was charged with multiple violations (providing unfair recruiting benefits, exceeding limits on practice times, failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance, failing to monitor players’ outside workouts) that would all fall under a coaching responsibility violation.

So, things are just continuing to get ugly between Kevin Ollie and UConn. It actually sucks to see especially with what Ollie meant to the program. He was a beloved player and then came back home as an assistant coach/coach-in-waiting to take over for Calhoun. He was the head coach of a national title team. Now, all that can be said with also saying that Ollie was an iffy head coach. His offense was very predictable, basic and quite frankly not great. He also had to deal with injuries though.

Regardless, here we are now with Kevin Ollie possibly facing a show-cause penalty.

How did we get here? Well it started with the firing of Ollie. Did it make sense? Yes, absolutely. No one is really arguing that. However, in order to save some money and contractual stuff, UConn said they fired him for just cause. Essentially that meant they didn’t have to pay him $10 million from his contract. Obviously, Ollie said otherwise.

Ollie now has 90 days to respond to the NCAA about the allegations before anything moves forward. But, it’s just another obstacle for Ollie to collect his money. He now has to fight both the NCAA and UConn in order to receive the $10 million that he believes he is owed. This isn’t going away any time soon.