The banner hanging from Value City Arena's rafters will be altered to erase any mention of the team's run to the national semifinals in 1999, and record books will be changed to delete pictures and statistics for the four tournament teams that included ineligible player Boban Savovic. The university must also repay about US$800,000 in tournament revenues from 1999-2002.
"The news we got today was great for the university, but the players in this locker room knew we were going" to the NCAA tournament, said center Terence Dials, the Big Ten's player of the year. "I would have been really shocked if they would have said we couldn't go."
If O'Brien gets a job at another college in the next five years, he and his new school must appear before the NCAA's infractions committee to discuss whether he will face additional limits.
"I wouldn't even dream of asking any other program to jump through hoops to give me an opportunity to get back in," O'Brien said by telephone from Boston.
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