Texas State is launching an investigation into men’s head basketball coach Danny Kaspar, who has been accused by two former players of repeatedly hurling racist remarks to the team.

According to former point guard Jaylen Shead, Kaspar said that his players would run faster if a “brown man with a [turban] and an AK-47” was there, that a European player needed to improve or he would be deported and that Shead once was “running like the cops are behind him.”

Shead transferred to Washington State last season after two years at Texas State.

“For me, the experience was shocking,” Shead tweeted. “I could overlook the way coach Kaspar treated players in most regards. I could overlook the lies he fed us to get us there and keep us there. I could overlook the way he disregarded the rules and our health. But I could not turn away from the many racially insensitive things that were said to me and other teammates.

“These things happened so much on a daily bases [sic], we became numb as it was normal.”

Kaspar, 65, has been at Texas State since 2013, previously serving as head coach at Stephen F. Austin for 13 years.

“I personally find these allegations deeply troubling,” athletic director Larry Teis said in a statement. “I, and the entire Department of Athletics staff, take the concerns expressed by our former student-athletes very seriously. At my request, the university has launched a formal investigation through the Office of Equal Opportunity and Title IX. It is our top priority to fully cooperate with the investigation.”

Shead, inspired to speak out by the nationwide protests following George Floyd’s death, said Kaspar would tell black players to “chase that chicken” when the coach wanted them to run faster, and told those struggling academically that they would eventually work at Popeyes.

Former Texas state player Alex Peacock supported Shead’s allegations, saying players stayed silent because they feared the consequences to their basketball careers.

“There is no embellishment in what he said,” Peacock told ESPN. “The first time I heard him tell somebody to ‘chase that bucket of chicken,’ I’m like, ‘Hold on. Being a player, it’s hard to come out when you’re in it, when you’re playing, because you don’t know what the ramifications will be.”

According to Peacock, Kaspar also allegedly told players he could utter slang derived from the N-word, used by players.

“He told the black players that if you can use it, I can use it,” Peacock said. “That’s one of the ones where you’re like, ‘OK … no.’ Those are two different meanings than when we use it.”

The NCAA had a chance to do the right thing on Friday and, in a stunning turn of events, completely missed the mark.

Who saw that one coming?

The punishment that the Committee on Infractions handed down to Oklahoma State on Friday, a one-year postseason ban to go along with scholarship reductions and myriad recruiting sanctions, was wrong and should be utterly terrifying for the other programs that found themselves caught up in the FBI’s investigation into college basketball corruption.

Oklahoma State faced a single Level I violation. It was an unethical conduct charge levied at former assistant coach Lamont Evans, who accepted at least $18,150 in bribes from financial advisors in exchange for peddling influence over one player from Oklahoma State and one player from South Carolina, where Evans was coaching before accepting a job on Brad Underwood’s staff in the spring of 2016. Evans was also accused of giving Jeffery Carroll $300.

That’s it.

Evans provided no competitive advantage for Oklahoma State, unless you consider the $300 he paid to Carroll — who was already on the roster and suspended for three games as a result — a competitive advantage. Evans was lining his pockets. He was not doing this to benefit the basketball program. Technically speaking, the players Evans claimed to have the power of persuasion over were the victims of the crimes that got him sentenced to three months in prison on federal bribery charges. He steered them to financial advisors that were willing to shell out bribe money. He knew nothing about the people that he was telling these players to invest their money with. One of the men Evans accepted bribes from was Marty Blazer, who sparked this entire investigation to try and avoid prison when he was caught by the SEC embezzling millions of dollars from clients.

That’s where Evans was guiding players who trusted him.

The players were the victims.

Despite that, Oklahoma State was still hit with a one-year postseason ban. Evans has been gone for three years. Carroll has been gone for two. Neither the current head coach — Mike Boynton — or the head coach the violations were committed under — Brad Underwood — were mentioned in the Notice of Allegations.

“There were no recruiting or other major violations on the part of the institution,” Oklahoma State said in a statement in November. “There are no allegations involving current student-athletes or coaching staff.”

None of that mattered to the Committee on Infractions.

They dropped the hammer on Oklahoma State, effectively neutering what was the most anticipated OSU season since Marcus Smart returned for his sophomore year. So much for seeing Cade Cunningham play in the NCAA tournament. Hell, we may not see Cunningham play for Oklahoma State, period. He was offered the chance to join the G League prospect pathway program, reportedly for as much money as Jalen Green. If he’s not going to play meaningful games at Oklahoma State, maybe he reconsiders the offer.

“Whatever the best option is for him we’re going to support 100 percent without any reservations,” Boynton said.

This gets to the core of the problem when it comes to NCAA enforcement: They far too often punish players and coaches for violations that they took no part in. What did Cunningham, or anyone else on Oklahoma State’s roster, have to do with Lamont Evans accepting bribes from a white collar felon that had been flipped by the FBI? How was anyone associated with the Oklahoma State athletic department supposed to prevent one assistant coach from accepting those bribes?

“A postseason ban for a bunch of kids that were 15, 16 years old when a lot of this was going on? It’s completely, completely out of bounds,” Boynton said.

He’s not wrong.

A postseason ban is total overkill.

That is the most infuriating part is that the NCAA was actually able to punish the man responsible. That’s not usually the case. Evans received a 10-year show-cause penalty from the NCAA in addition to a three month jail sentence for pleading guilty. His coaching career is effectively over. He’ll never be a Division I head coach. He’ll never coach at a level where he is able to earn a couple hundred grand as an assistant. The person entirely at fault for this situation had his life blown up.

And Oklahoma State still got a postseason ban despite the fact that, as Larry Parkinson of the Committee on Infractions said, “the institution fully cooperated from the moment they learned about the circumstances.”

That should be a major red flag for everyone else caught up in this investigation.

USC, Arizona and Auburn all had an assistant coach plead guilty to similar charges as Evans. Louisville committed their violations while they were on probation from the last scandal the program was embroiled in. Oklahoma State faced one Level I violation. Kansas faces five, and they’ve made quite clear they aren’t going to be as cooperative.

If the Committee on Infractions has set the bar here, everyone else better be ready to catch the book that gets thrown at them.

SAN MARCOS — Texas State will conduct an investigation into charges made by a former men’s basketball player that Bobcats head coach Danny Kaspar has made a series of racially insensitive comments to his team over the years, Bobcats athletic director Larry Teis said Friday.

“I personally find these allegations deeply troubling,” Teis said in a statement. “I, and the entire Department of Athletics staff, take the concerns expressed by our former student-athletes very seriously.”

Former player Jaylen Shead made the allegations against Kaspar on social media Thursday night. Among them, Shead tweeted that if Kaspar had heard a player use the N-word he’d say, “if y’all say the n word that means I can say it.” Shead also tweeted that Kaspar would routinely make jokes to players about race. One time when the players weren’t moving fast during a drill, Shead alleges Kaspar said, “if a Brown man with a turbin and AK-47 walked in, I bet y’all would run as fast as you could.”

In another instance according to Shead, Kaspar once told former player Nedeljko Prijovic, who was from Serbia, “a lot of boosters/alumni here at Txst are Trump supporters. You keep messing up (and) I’ll have you deported.”

“I spent two years at Texas State,” Shead said in the post. “For me the experience was shocking. I could overlook the lies he fed us to get us there and keep us there. I could overlook the way he disregarded the rules and our health. But I could not turn away from the many racially insensitive things that were said to me and other teammates … These things happened so much on a daily basis, we became numb as it was normal.”

Shead transferred to Texas State from Cal Poly and redshirted the 2017-18 season. He was the Bobcats’ starting point guard for 2018-19 but then transferred to Washington State in the summer of 2019 to play out his final year.

“I chose to leave because I knew I’d eventually say something and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to play anywhere or get a coaching job as I want to one day,” Shead tweeted. “But I am doing a disservice to those that come after.”

A handful of former players came out in support of Shead on Friday, including former teammate Alex Peacock, who was a two-year starting forward from 2017-19.

“Those things that (Shead) said are things that I heard directly,” Peacock told the American-Statesman.

Both Shead and Peacock said they don’t believe that Kaspar is racist, but that his remarks were insensitive. Peacock said he doesn’t think Kaspar should lose his job if he can learn from his mistakes.

“I don’t think there was really any malice behind it; they are just really insensitive comments that I don’t think he knows are really insensitive,” Peacock said. “I don’t think he should be fired if he can change his ways.”

Kaspar did not return a call seeking comment on Friday.

This isn’t the first time Kaspar has been accused of making racially-charged remarks while coaching at Texas State. A 2013 lawsuit filed by former player Basil Brown accused Kaspar, among other things, of making insensitive comments, including once scolding Brown for “taking advantage of a slow white boy” in practice. It also alleged Kaspar gave Brown’s scholarship to a white player because that player “is a slow white boy and I’m not going to fault him for that.”

The lawsuit was eventually dismissed because it was “too speculative,” according to NBC Sports.