Chapman left school early to enter the 1988 NBA draft. Additionally, sophomore standout Eric Manuel was suspected of cheating on his college entrance exam and voluntarily agreed to sit out until the investigation was finished. Potential star recruit Shawn Kemp transferred out of Kentucky after signing with the school early that year. As it turned out, Manuel didn't play a single game as the investigation dragged through the entire season, essentially placing the Wildcats in the hands of inexperienced sophomore LeRon Ellis and freshman Chris Mills. The two underclassmen struggled to fill the talent vacuum on the court and the Wildcats finished with a losing record of 13-19, the team's first losing full-season record since 1927. The scandal broke when it was alleged that Emery Worldwide employees discovered $1,000 in cash in an envelope Kentucky assistant coach Dwane Casey supposedly sent to Mills' father. It was later shown that Casey was uninvolved in the Emery envelope incident. The NCAA announced at the end of the season that its investigation into the basketball program had found the school guilty of violating numerous NCAA policies. The NCAA deemed the violations so egregious that it seriously considered hitting the Wildcats with the "death penalty", which would have shut down the entire basketball program (as opposed to simply being banned from postseason play) for up to two years. Kentucky was eligible for this severe penalty because it was already on probation for failing to cooperate with an investigation into an extensive scheme of payments to recruits. By then, however, Sutton was already gone. In March, school president David Roselle told Sutton that he had lined up enough support on UK's athletics board to fire him unless he resigned. Rather than face all-but-certain termination, Sutton resigned. Athletic director Cliff Hagan resigned as well. The Wildcats were slapped with three years' probation, a two-year ban from postseason play and a ban from live television in 1989–90. Manuel was also banned from ever playing again for any NCAA member school. Oklahoma State (1990–2006) After a year away from the game, Sutton returned to his alma mater, Oklahoma State, on April 11, 1990. He inherited a program that had fallen on hard times. At the time of his hire, since joining (or rejoining, depending on the source) the Big Eight Conference in 1957, Oklahoma State appeared in only three NCAA Tournaments. Previous Oklahoma State head coach Leonard Hamilton