Tournament Darling LIU Had A Thousand Ineligible Athletes, NCAA Says

One of the feel-good stories of March Madness is now in the NCAA’s sights. The Long Island University Sharks made the NCAA men’s basketball tournament this year after winning just three games just three years ago. It turns out the Sharks had multiple ineligible players during coach Rod Strickland’s first two seasons, when the Sharks won a combined 10 games before becoming conference contenders.

On Wednesday, the NCAA announced a negotiated settlement with the school. The Sharks will be on probation for the next three years , which will require the school to report additional information to the NCAA in regards to its policies and procedures. LIU will have to pay a $30,000 fine plus 3% of the budget for its four highest-budgeted sports.

Staff from the impacted programs will also have a two-week recruiting ban at the beginning of the academic year, when the probation period starts. The NCAA is vacating team and individual records from programs that had ineligible athletes in that span, which is from the 2020–21 season through 2023–24. Titles from the 2024–25 and 2025–26 seasons were not impacted, including the Sharks’ recent NEC Tournament title in men’s basketball.

An NCAA investigation found the university’s athletic programs allowed more than 1,000 ineligible student-athletes to participate despite not completing the proper NCAA paperwork or being uncertified to compete or practice. The school failed “to monitor its eligibility certification process,” according to the case summary .. LIU self-reported the infractions.