The NCAA has placed Wofford’s men’s basketball program on probation for a year due to a failure to monitor former coach Jay McAuley, who consistently had players engage in team activities on scheduled days off. McAuley, who resigned mid-season in 2022-23, agreed to a two-year show-cause order and is currently coaching at a high school in Georgia. If he returns to college coaching during this period, Wofford would need to suspend him for 15 games in his first season. The school was also fined $5,000 as part of the settlement reached between Wofford, McAule, and the NCAA, details of which were disclosed on Friday.

In December 2022, players at Wofford sent a letter to President Nayef H. Samhat stating they would no longer play for McAuley. The investigation revealed that McAuley exceeded the NCAA’s 20-hour weekly limit by requiring players to participate in film study, walk-throughs, and individual workouts on designated days off. McAuley’s violations occurred regularly during the championship segment of the playing season in 2021-22 and 2022-23 until he was placed on leave by the school in December 2022 and subsequently resigned.

Notably, McAuley had the team review video footage of their next opponent after a loss in November 2022, which goes against NCAA rules. Additionally, he met with a player past midnight, further violating NCAA regulations. The NCAA stated that Wofford lacked sufficient compliance monitoring systems to prevent and detect these violations, resulting in sanctions that include a reduction of the team’s countable preseason practice days from 30 to 25 and weekly countable hours for team activities from 20 to 18 for the upcoming season.

Wofford College expressed cooperation with the NCAA throughout the investigation and acceptance of the public negotiated resolution. Former McAuley assistant coach Dwight Perry will enter his second full season as head coach this coming fall for the Wofford men’s basketball program.