Basketball notes: Arizona has IARP request approved

Football has been dominating the news at Arizona over the last several days, but the basketball season is ongoing and is about to hit an important stretch with the holidays approaching. The Wildcats had their game against California Baptist canceled Wednesday evening though there is always the potential it gets rescheduled for a later date.

For now, UA's next opponent also marks the start of Pac-12 play with the Wildcats headed to Stanford for a meeting with the Cardinal in Santa Cruz this Saturday.

Here are the latest basketball notes with UA's next game coming up in a couple days.

Arizona's infractions case has reached another milestone in its long path toward a resolution. Rather than go through the typical NCAA infractions process, Arizona requested to have its case go through the new Independent Accountability Resolution Process (IARP) path instead. Thursday that request was granted by the Infractions Referral Committee.

"A request for referral of the infractions case involving Arizona to the Independent Accountability Resolution Process was granted by the Infractions Referral Committee," the NCAA said in a press release. "Consistent with rules and procedures governing the process, details about the matter will remain confidential until the Independent Resolution Panel releases its decision."

So far several other programs have opted to take their cases through the IARP route including Kansas, LSU and North Carolina State. Memphis is another program that opted to take the independent path toward a resolution. However, none of those cases have come to a close as of now leaving some mystery about how different this path will be from the typical path followed by the NCAA.

By opting to take the IARP route, Arizona will forgo its opportunity to appeal the future ruling by the independent panel as all decisions made by the group are final.

Arizona was hit with nine NCAA violations in a Notice of Allegations that arrived in October with The Athletic's Seth Davis reporting shortly after that the NCAA is accusing the Wildcats of five Level I violations, the most severe type of violations.

UA acknowledged receiving the Notice of Allegations, but has since declined to comment beyond that when it comes to the details of what the NCAA is accusing in the case centered around the men's basketball program.

"I'm not gonna comment on anything that is around any investigation, and that's really what I'm called to do as a member of our athletic department," head coach Sean Miller said when asked about the NOA back in October.

The case stems from the program's involvement in the corruption and bribery scandal that resulted in several coaches being charged with federal crimes by the FBI. Among those coaches was former UA assistant Emanuel "Book" Richardson who has since served three months in prison for his role.

According to the IARP website, "the committee consists of a member of the Independent Resolution Panel (serves as chair), a member of the Division I Committee on Infractions, a member of the Division I Infractions Appeals Committee, and the chair and vice chair of the Division I Council."

Arizona will now have its case reviewed and any further investigating that will need to be conducted will take place before the findings of that investigation are presented to the Independent Resolution Panel for a final ruling.

Oklahoma State did not use the IARP path in its case and received, among other punishments, a one-year postseason ban. Auburn has long declined to acknowledge whether or not it received a Notice of Allegations but decided to self-impose a postseason ban this year for its role in the scheme.

Games continue to be impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but the teams across the Pac-12 are moving closer to the bulk of the conference schedule in January. The league announced tip off times for the first portion of those games in addition to full TV designations on Thursday giving UA a better understanding of the next steps in his season.

UA will play two conference games before the end of the year with Colorado set to make the trip to Tucson Dec. 28 for a matchup that had to be rescheduled from Dec. 2 because of coronavirus-related issues for the Buffs. That will be in addition to this Saturday's matchup with the Cardinal, which will take place in Santa Cruz at the Golden State Warriors' G-League facility because of COVID-19 restrictions in Santa Clara County.

Overall the rest of season UA will have one game on CBS, eight appearances on the ESPN family of networks, five games on FS1 and seven on Pac-12 Networks. The first nationally televised game will come Jan. 7 when the Wildcats host USC followed by another game on Jan. 9 against UCLA with both being shown on either ESPN or ESPN2.

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