Bill Self, assistant Kurtis Townsend suspended for first four Kansas games of 2022-23

The Kansas Jayhawks today announced several self-imposed penalties related to the ongoing NCAA investigation into the program, as head coach Bill Self and lead assistant Kurtis Townsend will be suspended for the first four games of the 2022-23 season.

The Jayhawks are hoping to mitigate the final punishments from the NCAA, who is using the Independent Accountability Resolution Process to adjudicate the punishment. Since this case was opened, the IARP system has been shut down by new legislation, and this will be one of the last investigations it completes.

However also due to those changes, no appeal is available to Kansas and whatever is resolved will need to be enforced. The original Notice of Allegations from the NCAA came in September 2019, and that included three Level I violations including the potential pockmark of “Lack of Institutional Control,” which is what hit the program after the Larry Brown years as well.

Here’s what else Kansas did to itself to impress the judges so far according to Kyle Boone at CBSSports.com:

• The reduction of four official visits during this academic year and in 2023-24.
• The reduction of three total scholarships in Men’s Basketball; to be distributed over the next three years.
• The implementation of a six-week ban on recruiting communications, a six-week ban on unofficial visits and a thirteen-day reduction in the number of permissible recruiting days during the 2022-23 calendar year.
• No official visits for 2022 Late Night in the Phog.

Going from 13 to 12 scholarships per year and not being able to text message or DM recruits isn’t really that big a deal, but the fact that the program who pushed back so hard against the original NoA is rolling over like this might mean they hope to avoid truly bigger punishments.

Or that they’ve been given the tacit sign-off from the IARP that this could be enough to get them out of jail. One never really knows until the final charges are imposed.

But remember Kansas once called the original charges “simply baseless and littered with false representations” and that still stands on their website today. This is certainly a turn in how they’ve responded previously.

Duke plays Omaha, North Dakota State, and Southern Utah during three of those first four games at home, with a neutral site visit to Indianapolis to take on Duke set for November 15.