NCAA Basketball News & Notes For August 7

The start of a new NCAA men’s basketball season is still over three months away, but it still remains a perfect time of the year to keep an ear to the news wire for all the interesting behind-the-scene stories going on.

The following is a look at this week’s most interesting news and notes from the world of college basketball.

NCAA set to toughen up the rules for violations

In response to the whole Penn State football scandal, the NCAA has announced that it is going to toughen its stance against any kind of rules violations, especially for schools or programs that have been judged to be constant or repeat offenders. A new proposal introduced last Thursday would enable the NCAA to hand down sanctions that could be as harsh - or even harsher - than the ones it hit Penn State with a few weeks back. The final vote from the NCAA Board of Directors on the whole matter will not take place until their next meeting in October, but it is widely believed that the new plan will be put in place.

The plan calls for the current two-tier penalty structure of major and secondary violations to be expanded to a four-tier program that could levy suspensions all the way up to four years for the most egregious violations. It could also penalize schools in terms of fines and possible suspensions of head coaches if they were aware of any rules infractions by their staff or other officials at the school.

Kendrick Nunn limits his list to five schools

Simeon senior guard Kendrick Nunn recently announced that he has limited his choices of where to play his college basketball to the following five schools; Illinois, Marquette, Memphis, Ohio State, and UCLA. Nunn is currently the No.54-ranked high school player on ESPN’s top 100. The Fighting Illini may have the inside track to landing the 6-foot-2 shooting guard after new head coach John Groce, who started the recruiting process at Ohio, took over the top spot at Illinois. Nunn’s father, Melvin, made note of the positive relationship that Groce had developed with his son.

Nunn also stated that his son plans to visit all five schools on his list before making a final decision sometime during the early signing period this November. Kendrick is currently ranked as the second-best high school player in the state of Illinois behind his teammate at Simeon, Jabari Parker, who is also considered the top-ranked player in the nation.

Central Florida hit with one-year ban from postseason play

The UCF Knights will now have to pay the price for rules violations for both its football and basketball programs as a result of some of its coaches association with “outside third party” Ken Caldwell, including a one-year ban from postseason play for the 2012/2013 season. The school had already imposed some in-house sanctions against basketball head coach Donnie Jones, who served a three-game suspension last season and had to vacate victories from 2008 to 2011 as well as face a reduction in scholarships for his part in the relationship. It was former UCF athletic director Keith Tribble’s dealings with Caldwell that did the most damage and the primary reason for the one-year ban. Tribble stepped down last November in light of the whole scandal after being found guilty of unethical conduct.