The University of Kansas announced Wednesday that head basketball coach Bill Self and assistant coach Kurtis Townsend will miss the first four games of the 2022-23 season to serve a self-imposed suspension relating to KU’s NCAA infractions case.

According to a release announcing the suspensions, KU informed the NCAA’s Independent Resolution Panel last week that it was self-imposing several sanctions in response to its ongoing basketball case, which originated in 2017.

The NCAA’s case against KU, which includes allegations of five Level 1 infractions, a charge of head coach responsibility and a tag of lack of institutional control, was officially accepted by the newly formed and soon to be eliminated Independent Accountability Resolution Process on July 1, 2020, nearly one year after KU received its initial notice of allegations from the NCAA in September 2019.

Self and Townsend both will coach during Thursday’s exhibition game against Pittsburg State — 7 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse on ESPN+ — and begin serving the suspensions during KU’s regular season opener next Monday against Omaha.

Veteran KU assistant Norm Roberts will serve as the Jayhawks’ interim coach while Self serves the suspension. Roberts was previously the head coach at St. John’s. KU also added former Florida Gulf Coast and East Carolina head coach Joe Dooley — a former Self assistant at Kansas — to its coaching staff this offseason.

“Coach Townsend and I accept and support KU’s decision,” Self said in a statement. “We are in good hands with Coach Roberts, and I am confident that he will do a great job on the bench leading our team. I am proud of the way our guys have handled this situation and I look forward to returning to the bench for our game against N.C. State.”

The infractions case against Kansas stems from a federal investigation in 2017 that led to the conviction of shoe company executives, a middleman who worked with them and several assistant coaches.

Kansas was among the schools named in the case, along with Arizona, LSU, Louisville and N.C. State.

The Kansas case hinged on whether representatives of apparel company Adidas were considered boosters — the school contends they were not — when two of them arranged payments to prospective recruits. The school never disputed that the payments were made, only that it had any knowledge that the inducements were happening.

“We are hopeful these difficult self-imposed sanctions will assist in bringing the case to a conclusion,” Kansas athletic director Travis Goff said in a statement, and declining any additional comment. “Until then, we will continue to focus on supporting our outstanding men’s basketball student-athletes and coaches.”

A KU spokesperson told the Journal-World that Self and Townsend both will be able to coach at practices during the suspensions. They will be required to be away from the program entirely for a 24-hour period surrounding each of the four games they are scheduled to miss.

According to the release announcing the move, the suspensions are being handed down as steps that KU hopes will move the NCAA process forward.

“Throughout this process, we have had ongoing conversations with all the involved parties,” KU Chancellor Douglas Girod said in the release. “We believe the actions we are announcing today move us closer to resolving this matter. We look forward to commenting further when this process is fully resolved. Until then, I want to reiterate our unwavering support of coach Self and our men’s basketball program.”

In addition to the suspensions, KU announced several other self-imposed penalties. They include:

• The absence of Self and Townsend from all off-campus recruiting-related activities for four months (April through July 2022).

• The reduction of four official visits during this academic year and in 2023-24.

• The reduction of three total scholarships in Men’s Basketball; to be distributed over the next three years.

• The implementation of a six-week ban on recruiting communications, a six-week ban on unofficial visits and a thirteen-day reduction in the number of permissible recruiting days during the 2022-23 calendar year.

• No official visits for 2022 Late Night in the Phog.

The first and last penalties on the list above already have been served.

When asked about the absence of official visitors at Late Night last month, Self said the program did not host any that night because they already had three players committed in the 2023 class and we’re not actively looking for more at the time. Self at that time did not disclose that the decision was related to any self-imposed sanctions.

It is uncertain when the NCAA’s Independent Accountability Review Panel may rule on the KU case, or how the self-imposed sanctions may impact the ruling. Auburn received four years of probation through a traditional NCAA infractions process for a similar case, but Kansas joined other schools in appealing its case to an Independent Accountability Review Panel, which was among the proposals made by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2018 to reform the sport.

The panel works outside the purview of the NCAA and was designed to handle particularly complex cases. But its work has been painfully slow — NCAA president Mark Emmert acknowledged the process takes “way too long.”

Making the Kansas case more complex, though, is the rapidly shifting landscape of college sports. Some of the alleged infractions from the 2017 investigation would no longer be against the rules following name, image and likeness legislation, which has allowed athletes in all sports to begin making money from endorsements and other off-the-field business arrangements.

As it stands now, Self’s return to the bench for the regular season will take place in the first round of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas during Thanksgiving week when KU plays North Carolina State. Tipoff for that game is slated for 11 a.m. Nov. 23 on ESPN. The four-game suspension means Self won’t be on the bench for KU’s early-season marquee matchup against Duke in the Champions Classic. Self and Townsend also will miss games against North Dakota State and Southern Utah.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.