NCAA Death Penalty on Basketball

Date: August 5, 1973 • Location: Lafayette, United States

Due to an athletics scandal, the National Collegiate Athletic Association applied the death penalty to the basketball program at the University of Southwestern Louisiana.

In 1973, the University of Southwestern Louisiana was penalized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for rules violations concerning the university's basketball program. This followed an investigation in which the association discovered that the program had been fielding academically ineligible players and paying student athletes, in violation of the NCAA's rules. As a result, the NCAA applied what is now referred to as the "death penalty" to the program, barring them from competing for two years, in addition to other forms of punishment that included a probation period and a removal of voting rights in the association.