Completely unsurprising

You guys might wanna be a little bit more circumspect in your assumption regarding this suspension. FWIW.

"St. Mary's athletic director Mark Orr declined to name the assistant but said the coach started working at the university in 2008 and resigned in August 2009. The report also said the coach previously worked for a professional sports agency.

Keith Moss, a former sports agent, coached at the university for the 2008-09 season and resigned in August 2009."

It's a bummer - but could have been far worse. Just ask UNLV.

That is correct Johnny Sack it was a former assistant

Like you said Johnny Sack Maybe before people comment they should fully read the article

NCAA rules also state that if an assistant breaks the rules the Head Coach is guilty by association

The team also will have a reduction in scholarships from 13 to 11 for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons and an elimination of all foreign tours until the start of the 2017-18 season

As Johnny said it's a bummer, but could of been far worse.

Rav & Johnny the pity of all this is we were getting a college team that identified with Australia

It was like it was partly our team

It was a stage to see young Austrlians play basketball

I am lucky as I have been able to watch ever St Marys game live during the last 4 months and I have enjoyed their journey

What a pity it will be if because of this they do no feature on ESPN as much next year

we will not get to see the development of Jordan Page and Matt Hodgson

ESPN break downs the sanctions below:
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/blog/_/name/katz_andy/id/9005928/what-ncaa-penalties-mean-saint-mary-college-basketball

Interest comment by the ESPN writer in the story:
• Bennett cannot recruit off campus for the 2013-14 season. That could hurt, but Bennett has done international recruiting more than any other coach and doesn't necessarily have to go abroad to secure players now that he has a pipeline to Australia. The Australian Institute of Sport knows Bennett and his program and would have no issue sending players to Saint Mary's without seeing him in the summer.

It's an interesting read.

FRANCE really? Didn't see that coming.

ABC7news believes the coach in question is Keith Moss and the player from France is Remi Barry.

Article suggest Moss was involved in trying to find Remi better housing while he was playing HS basketball in Florida.

Why do I suspect that there are many colleges that do exactly what St Mary's staff are accused of doing?? The amount of money that the NCAA make from TV rights out of these kids and they are worried about this?WTF

What exactly is classified as a "Foreign Tour'?

Do they undertake foreign tours regularly?

Schools can tour internationally once every four years during summer vacation.. it basically gives a team 3-4 weeks of being able to properly practice and play and also to recruit oversea's when normally players are restricted from training with coaching staff(I think its 2hrs a week now)

NCAA went way overboard with the penalty's, player never went to the Gaels, Randy Bennett wasnt even really recruiting him, it was something the assistant coach went and did by himself, tho RB sortof knew about it I think.

Compared to crap big time programs do and get away with its a freaking joke, Miami had bosters paying players and they screwed up the investigation so nothings happened, North Carolina had a bogus course that the brain dead athletes took(like a 100 of them) over 5 years that a 5yr old could pass and the NCAA didnt even punish them.

really think they should pick up darcy malone

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/147349392/Saint-Marys-ruling

If people are interested they should actually read the report.
- This is not David Patrick
- This is not Australian Players
- This is not even for any players that actually play or played at SMC.

I should clarify that the recruiting violations are not for any past or present player at SMC.

The violations around extra training obviously involved SMC players.

There is a long and deep sense in the US that smaller schools like St. Mary's get dealt more harshly by the NCAA for the same violations. A paraphrase of former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian, "The NCAA got so mad at Kentucky that they gave Cleveland State two more years of probation."

The penalties seem a bit harsh and when you add losing Delly after this season, St. Mary's will be hard pressed to continue their solid teams. Not impossible but this is a setback, particularly the reduction in scholarships.

By the way, New Mexico, which should be a preseason top ten team next year, is scheduled to take one of those once-in-four-years international tours to Australia prior to next fall.

Whilst I definitely agree that some of the larger programs have gotten away with seemingly more serious 'crimes' in the past, one could still argue that the sanctions imposed on SMC and Bennett were actually quite soft. there does seem to be a different rule for some and not others...

Danie Pineau is another Aussie that joins the team next season to keep the Aussie connection going.