The NCAA has suspended Memphis basketball coach Penny Hardaway for the first three games of the 2023-24 season due to impermissible contact with a recruit two years ago.

According to the NCAA, Hardaway and an assistant coach took separate impermissible in-home visits to a recruit during the player’s junior year of high school in 2021-22 (coaches are allowed to visit junior recruits at school, but not at home). Hardaway was charged with failure to monitor his staff and violating head coach responsibility rules.

“Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse,” the panel said in its decision. “The head coach’s inattentiveness to compliance — particularly at a time when his program was under scrutiny related to a different infractions case — resulted in careless violations. Head coaches must remain diligent in monitoring their staff and promoting compliance at all times and cannot delegate those responsibilities to compliance staff members and administrators.”

Hardaway is 111-52 in five seasons at Memphis, including an NIT championship in 2021 and NCAA tournament appearances in each of the last two years. The Tigers have not announced their 2023-24 schedule, so it’s not yet clear which games Hardaway will have to sit out. However the Commercial Appeal of Memphis reported Hardaway will miss games vs. Jackson State (Nov. 6), Missouri (Nov. 10) and Alabama State (Nov. 17).

The sanctions against Hardaway are in addition to penalties the school self-imposed in January as part of a separate NCAA case. In December, Memphis agreed to three years of probation, a two-week ban on recruiting communications, a reduction of in-person recruiting days and official visits, plus a $5,000 fine.