• Former UH coach Gib Arnold ‘very pleased’ with outcome of NCAA investigation

The University of Hawaii men’s basketball team is banned from postseason play for the 2016-17 season and is subject to further scholarship reductions for two years, the NCAA announced today.

The sanctions, which the Rainbow Warriors thought they had avoided with self-imposed measures earlier this year, were among those handed down by the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions in the 26-month case.

Meanwhile, Gib Arnold, who UH fired as its head coach Oct. 28, 2014 in the wake of the NCAA investigation, received the equivalent of a 10-game ban with a 30 percent suspension if he seeks to coach at an NCAA-member institution between Dec. 22, 2015 and Dec. 21, 2018. The NCAA report did not name Arnold but he was referred to as “a former UH-Manoa men’s basketball coach.”

However, the penalty is likely moot since he is working in the NBA as a scout for the Boston Celtics.

The post-season ban means that current UH players who are juniors would be free to transfer to another school after this season without having to sit out a year, the NCAA said.

According to an NCAA spokewoman, “The rule applies if a student-athlete’s last year of eligibility is the 2016-17 season. If it is the student-athlete’s last season of eligibility, he can transfer without sitting out a year because his last season of competition is affected by the postseason ban.”

Current players Aaron Valdes, Stefan Jankovic, Stefan Jovanovic, Mike Thomas are among those who would be eligible to transfer penlty-free.

“We got crushed,” said a UH figure not authorized to speak publicly. UH has yet to officially comment on the sanctions or said if it will appeal.

But Arnold claimed “vindication” since he was not found guilty of any Level I (the most serious) violations, according to his attorney James Bickerton.

The NCAA also sanctioned “a former assistant” believed to be Brandyn Akana with a two-year show cause order.

Valdes greeted the sanctions on Twitter with: “We still got a season to play and a NCAA tourney to make This year we just have to stay focused. Either you’re with us or against us.”

UH and Arnold appeared before the committee in Dallas in October, nine months after the NCAA Enforcement staff charged the program with seven violations of the association’s rules.

At the time, the allegations included three Level I violations and four from Level II, the most severe of the four levels. But in today’s announcement, the Committee on Infractions reduced the case to the overall Level II, it said.

The NCAA placed blame both on the UH coaching staff and the athletic department’s compliance office saying, “the case provides a cautionary tale regarding the interaction between coaching staffs and institutional compliance office. The relationship between the former head men’s basketball coach and the director of compliance at this institution was tense to the point of being nearly dysfunctional. Communication between the two was poor and overshadowed by an ongoing personality conflict. Had they worked more collaboratively in their dealings, at least some of the violations in this case would likely not have occurred.”

Amanda Paterson was the compliance director at the time and attanded the NCAA hearing. This week her promotion to an assistant athletic director position was announced.

Penalties and corrective actions imposed by the panel include: