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Georgia Tech Basketball: A few quick thoughts on the NCAA’s allegations

By Dylan Callaghan-Croley

ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 07: Head coach Josh Pastner of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets coaches his team during a time out during the Yellow Jackets' game against the Louisville Cardinals at Hank McCamish Pavilion on January 7, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Mike Comer/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 07: Head coach Josh Pastner of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets coaches his team during a time out during the Yellow Jackets' game against the Louisville Cardinals at Hank McCamish Pavilion on January 7, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Mike Comer/Getty Images) /
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Georgia Tech basketball on Thursday was the subject of NCAA allegations, here’s what we make of these allegations going forward.

On Thursday, the NCAA served the Georgia Tech Basketball program with high-level violation allegations that happened under the watch of head coach Josh Pastner. While the allegations are considered those of “high-level violation”. Most of the allegations involved have been known in the past, which should be good news for the Yellow Jackets.

LaBarrie takes recruit and player to strip club:

The allegation that is the newest in the allegations is that former Georgia Tech assistant coach Darryl LaBarrie took both a recruit and a player on the roster at the time to an Atlanta Strip Club. Today, it was told by Jeff Goodman of Stadium that the recruit in which LaBarrie took a strip club is current Duke Blue Devil and former five-star recruit Wendell Carter. The player on the roster at the time was former Tech guard Justin Moore who transferred to Pacific University following last season according to Ken Sugiura of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Additionally, the “booster” that the allegations noted is not that of Ron Bell but former Yellow Jacket Jarrett Jack. In November of 2017, LaBarrie was placed on leave by Josh Pastner before being resigning from the job in February of 2018.

This allegation is really the only “new” allegation out of what the NCAA presented on Tuesday. Other allegations set forth in the report have been known for a while.

Ron Bell, Tadric Jackson, and Josh Okogie.

The other notable allegation in the report was the long-known Ron Bell, Tadric Jackson, and Josh Okogie saga. As most Tech fans know by now, former friend of Josh Pastner and booster of Memphis athletics Ron Bell flew Tadric Jackson and Josh Okogie to his house in Arizona while also supplying both players with money, food, and clothing.

The Yellow Jackets at the time these allegations originally surfaced prior to the 2017-18 season took necessary action in suspending both Jackson and Okogie.

Overall thoughts:

Overall, we believe the men’s basketball program is going to be just fine going forward. While the allegations are considered among the most severe in the eyes of the NCAA, the program in the past has already taken care of both situations via dismissals and self-punishment. While the NCAA at times has been known to overstep on some violations while not punishing others, the Yellow Jackets should be fine for the most part. The Jackets may receive some small punishment by the NCAA when it comes to recruiting but there shouldn’t be anything drastic such as loss of scholarships.

Additionally, it’s good news that Josh Pastner was not named in the report himself, meaning the NCAA at least for the most part has confidence that Pastner is not responsible for the allegations. That should help how the NCAA punishes the Yellow Jackets in the future.

The Yellow Jackets will have until May 16th to respond to the allegations which means any punishments that the NCAA plans to hand down to the program should be heard by at the latest, sometime early-to-mid summer.