Less than 24 hours after the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations against the men’s basketball program surfaced, athletic director Ray Tanner made his first public comments addressing them.

Speaking at the university’s board of trustees meeting, Tanner adamantly backed his head coach Frank Martin and the program he runs, very similar to a statement he released Thursday night.

“I will very passionately and actively defend our program and our institution in this process with the NCAA,” Tanner said.

The allegations stem from former basketball assistant Lamont Evans accepting almost $5,900 in brides from basketball agent Christian Dawkins to arrange meetings with P.J. Dozier to influence him to retain Dawkins’ agency, ASM Sports, once Dozier went pro.

Nowhere in the notice was Martin implicated or was a lack of institutional control mentioned.

Because of that, and an athletic department investigation, Tanner does not believe there will be any wins taken away from South Carolina during the time Dozier was on campus for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons.

With Dozier on campus, the Gamecocks won 51 games over two seasons and went to a Final Four.

“We feel exactly we know what occurred internally,” Tanner said, continuing to say, “Based on the knowledge I have and the internal research we have, I do not (believe wins will be forfeited).”

Tanner said he hasn’t spoken to the NCAA on the next steps but believes there’s a formal process to “defend the allegations” and present their findings.

He said there isn’t a timeline on when this process could be completed.

“Some of the other schools who have received a notice of allegations, I haven’t seen anything come out and some were many months ago,” Tanner said.

The allegations South Carolina is being accused of are considered Level 1, which is a “severe breach of conduct” because violations were “intended to provide a substantial or extensive impermissible benefit to a staff member, involved unethical conduct or were intentional or showed reckless indifference to the NCAA,” according to the notice.

Evans left South Carolina after the Final Four season and coached a few seasons at Oklahoma State.

Tanner released a statement last night when the allegations were made public almost two weeks after the university received them on Jan. 31, 2020.

"The University of South Carolina has received a Notice of Allegations from the NCAA related to a former men's basketball assistant coach,” the statement read. “As expected, this does not involve any institutional, current coaching staff or former or current student-athlete eligibility issues. We will continue to defend our program and institution in this process with the NCAA."

For the full notice of allegations, click here.