The NCAA has penalized the Ole Miss men's basketball program for tampering violations by former assistant coach Wes Flanigan, who was found to have regularly communicated with the adviser of an athlete from another school.
Flanigan, according to the NCAA, spoke on the phone to the adviser 16 times and sent 10 text messages. The NCAA release did not clarify when the violations occurred.
The athlete, who was not yet in the transfer portal at the time of Flanigan's conversations with the adviser, ultimately never visited Ole Miss and transferred to a different school.
Most of the penalties were served during the 2024-25 and 2025-26 academic years, including a one-week ban on all men's basketball recruiting communications; a one-week ban on unofficial and official visits; and a five-day reduction in recruiting days. Flanigan was given a one-year show-cause order and a two-game suspension, which was served in December 2025.
While coach Chris Beard was automatically responsible for the violations, zero penalties were levied against him because he was "not aware of the violations" and "promoted compliance."
Flanigan, who spent three seasons as an assistant coach at Ole Miss before leaving last spring, is now the associate head coach at Georgia Tech under first-year head coach Scott Cross. He had succeeded Beard as the head coach at Little Rock from 2016 to 2018.
The violations were uncovered during a wider NCAA investigation into whether the Ole Miss athletic department had actually disassociated a booster from a 2017 infractions case. The school was required to disassociate from the booster for three years, but the booster still donated more than $100,000 during that time.
