NCAA Upholds Missouri Softball's Postseason Ban

By Kayla Lombardo
on November 26, 2019

The University of Missouri's softball team has been banned from the 2020 postseason, multiple sources have confirmed.

The NCAA is expected to formally announce the decision of its Infractions Appeals Committee on Tuesday.

According to PowerMizzou.com's Gabe DeArmond, who first reported the news, the postseason ban will include both the SEC and NCAA Tournaments for the softball program in 2020. Both the football and baseball programs will face similar one-year postseason bans, which have resulted from sanctions the NCAA released in January against the university concerning the unsuitable actions of a tutor within its athletics department. The NCAA learned that the tutor completed schoolwork for 12 different student-athletes at Missouri.

Missouri filed an appeal in March, and because of that, the university's softball and baseball programs were allowed to compete in the postseason in 2019. With both programs now banned from postseason play in 2020, the football team will also be banned from the postseason, effective immediately. As a result of the NCAA's decision, the Mizzou athletics department expects the ban to cost it roughly $8 million.

The other sanctions the university reportedly faces include a $5,000 fine and one percent of the budgets of the three impacted sports, a scholarship reduction of five percent for those three sports, a vacation of wins, three years of probation and several recruiting restrictions, which include:

- A seven-week ban on unofficial visits for all three programs.

- A 12.5 percent reduction in official visits for all three programs.

- A seven-week ban on recruiting communications for all three programs.

- A seven-week ban on all off-campus recruiting contacts and evaluations for the coaches of all three programs.

- A 12.5 percent reduction in evaluation days for all three programs.