South Carolina reports 11 secondary violations

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina’s athletic department is reporting 11 secondary NCAA violations in the past six months, including two from the program of new women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley.

The school said Tuesday that a women’s basketball coach improperly text-messaged a prospect and a coach incorrectly publicized an informal practice scrimmage.

The name of the coach wasn’t included in the report. All violations are considered low-level infractions of NCAA rules.

Staley was hired as the school’s new women’s basketball coach in May.

The school releases such violations twice a year because of regular open-records requests by The Associated Press and other news organizations.

The department said it also conducted 661 drug tests. Five came back positive for marijuana and one for alcohol.

In the past, South Carolina has recorded violations such as football coach Steve Spurrier’s wife, Jerri, sending hand-written notes to families of players who signed with the Gamecocks.

All requests to restore athletes’ eligibility connected with the latest batch of violations were granted, the school said.

For women’s basketball, the text-message violation took place Oct. 1 and was classified as Level I, meaning it is submitted to the NCAA enforcement staff through the SEC office.

The violation for publicizing the scrimmage occurred in November and was considered Level II, which means the SEC office collects such infractions and submits a report to the NCAA at the end of the academic year.