On April 22, the NCAA reported that it had officially sanctioned the Fordham Men’s Basketball program for past recruiting violations, handing down numerous penalties as a result of major infractions committed during the team’s recruitment of student-athletes from June 2021 to April 2023.
The release, which contains a supplementary negotiated resolution, outlines the procedural facts of the major infractions case, as well as the specifics of the team’s violations and consequent penalties.
Notably, the document lists former Athletic Director Edward Kull, former Men’s Basketball Head Coach Keith Urgo and former Director of Basketball Operations Trevonn Morton as the case’s chief offenders. However, the document also repeatedly notes that Urgo and Morton “denied intentionally committing the violations.”
The case began in September 2022, when “the institution’s athletic business office discovered that Morton, Urgo and the men’s basketball program provided impermissible recruiting benefits in the form of entertainment expenses to two men’s basketball prospective student-athletes and their family members during official visits.”
From there, the NCAA started a collaborative investigation with the school in January 2023, unveiling a number of other violations.
For instance, on eight occasions the team paid for recruits to enjoy various activities that exceeded the NCAA’s $75 per day limit on entertainment spending. These activities included trips for players and their parents to see the New York Giants, New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and U.S. Open sporting events. Lesser violations included paid outings at bowling alleys and an instance in which the team rented jet skis for a recruit. All together, the cost of these various impermissible benefits added up to an approximate total of $10,736.
Furthermore, on 24 other separate occasions the team paid for a professional photographer to publicly capture film of prospective student-athletes in Times Square — an action in direct violation of the NCAA’s publicity-before-signing rules.
However, most notably, the NCAA has elected to vacate all team records from 2021-2023, during which two rostered players were considered ineligible “as a result of the impermissible benefits.” Included in that span is the 2022-2023 season during which the team went 25-8, a program record for wins in a season.
The NCAA classified the infractions as Level II — Level I being the highest, and Level III the lowest.
The NCAA also gave show-cause orders of one, two and three years to Kull, Urgo and Morton, respectively. Morton’s penalty was greatest due to a September 2023 interview in which he denied knowledge of and involvement in providing entertainment expenses for a recruit to see a Giants game in a suite. It was later proven that Morton and Urgo did arrange for this event, and even visited the suite. The NCAA claimed that Morton “provided false and misleading information during the interview.”
The team has been placed on probation – a period of heightened scrutiny and regulation – for three years. As part of this, the team will be barred from participating in the July 2025 recruiting window. They will also pay a fine of $35,000 plus 2% of the team’s allocated budget.
Urgo was fired in March following the team’s season — the University did not mention whether the NCAA’s investigation had to do with the decision. Morton and Kull are also no longer with the program, as Kull left Fordham to become the Athletic Director at St. John’s University in September of 2024, while Morton departed during the regime change to new Head Coach Mike Magpayo.
