Baylor University basketball scandal

In the early 2000s Baylor University's men's basketball program was investigated and punished for numerous NCAA violations. The scandal broke out after the 2003 murder of men's basketball player Patrick Dennehy. His teammate Carlton Dotson pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to a 35-year prison term.

Shortly after Dennehy's disappearance, the school and the NCAA began investigations into multiple allegations, ranging from drug use among players to improper payments to players by the coaching staff. Baylor self-imposed punishments, which the NCAA augmented to include extended probation for the school through 2010, the elimination of one year of non-conference play, and a 10-year show-cause penalty on resigned head coach Dave Bliss. The sanctions so crippled the Bears that they didn't have another winning season until 2008. It is one of the harshest penalties ever imposed on a Division I program that didn't include the NCAA's "death penalty".

Patrick Dennehy was a junior forward who transferred to Baylor University from the University of New Mexico following his sophomore season in 2001–2002. In the summer of 2003, Dennehy and his new teammate Carlton Dotson indicated that they were concerned about their safety. Following a party to which both men no showed, there were indications that something had gone wrong when Dennehy's family had not heard from him and his roommate returned home to find that his dog had not been fed. On June 25, Dennehy's car was found in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with its license plates removed.

An affidavit filed on June 23, which was unsealed on June 30, seeking a search warrant for Dennehy's computer says that an informant in Delaware told police that Dotson, who was by now at home in Hurlock, Maryland, told a cousin that he had shot and killed Dennehy during an argument while firing guns in the Waco area. On July 21, Dotson was charged with the murder of Patrick Dennehy and taken into custody in Maryland. On July 26, a badly decomposed body was found in a gravel pit near Waco and was later identified as Dennehy. On July 30, his death was ruled a homicide, and on August 7, a memorial service was held for Dennehy in San Jose, California.

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