Georgia assistant basketball coach Jim Harrick, Jr. has been suspended, athletic director Vince Dooley announced Friday.

Georgia is investigating violations alleged in an ESPN report Thursday by former basketball player Tony Cole that Harrick provided the guard with improper benefits and academic assistance. Georgia officials told ESPN.com that the investigation will be conducted in conjunction with the SEC and the NCAA.

Under the terms of the suspension, Harrick will be precluded from participation in practices and games and will not travel in an official capacity. Harrick will be permitted to use the Georgia basketball office facilities at Stegeman Coliseum.

''In light of the seriousness of the allegations, we feel that it is appropriate to suspend Jim Harrick, Jr., with pay, until such time as these allegations are investigated to our satisfaction,'' Dooley said. ''Despite the many issues that we have had with Tony Cole in the past, we still feel this is the prudent course of action. It would certainly be our intent to get this matter resolved as quickly as possible, and it is our hope that the resolution is a positive one.''

Earlier Friday, a school official had told ESPN.com that Harrick had been suspended, but the official was later told not to send out the news release. The school officially announced the move later in the day.

University president Michael Adams also issued a statement, saying Ed Tolley, legal counsel to the university's athletic association, would lead the investigation and that the NCAA's enforcement director, David Price, had been asked for assistance.

"The allegations concerning the basketball program are serious. We will take definitive and appropriate actions based upon the findings of this investigation,'' Adams said.

Georgia head coach Jim Harrick Sr., who brought his son with him as an assistant from Rhode Island, briefly met reporters prior to Friday's practice in Athens. He said the school takes the allegations very seriously but was confident that the investigation would have a quick conclusion and a positive outcome.

"Despite the many issues we've had in the past with Tony Cole, we take these things seriously," Harrick Sr., told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution before Friday's practice, which was closed to the media.

"To attack our program is something I take very seriously. I'm very confident we'll come to a very swift and positive answer to all these questions."

During an interview with Sporting News Radio on Friday, Cole said that Harrick and his son wanted him out because "they knew I carried powerful information.''

Cole also said in the interview he was "well taken care of from the beginning'' at Georgia.

"I wore nice clothes, I still do wear nice clothes, I have money in the bank, I can feed myself when I want to, I don't have to eat sugar sandwiches anymore,'' he said. "Right now I'm trying to put a loan down so I can buy a house.''

Cole, who was suspended after 16 games last season when he was charged with sexual assault, told ESPN's Jeremy Schaap that one or both Harricks arranged payment of telephone and hotel bills for Cole and helped him fraudulently achieve high grades at two different schools, including Georgia. The sexual-assault charges against Cole were later dropped, but he was not reinstated to the basketball team.

In one of those allegations, Cole claims that Harrick Jr. paid off a large phone bill that Cole ran up while staying at a friend's home while attending summer school in his home town of Baton Rouge, La.

The mother of Cole's friend, Eva Davis, told Schaap that Harrick Jr. offered to take care of any expenses Cole incurred while staying at her house.

"When he called and talked to me about helping Tony out, he left a number for me to reach him if there was a problem," Davis told Schaap. "When the phone bill came in, I let him know that, you know, there was an added expense -- a phone bill had come in for almost $300. [Harrick Jr.] said that he would, you know, take care of the phone bill so that I wouldn't have that expense. And that was it. He took care of the phone bill."

ESPN showed a $300 Western Union statement from "Jim Harrick."

Cole confirmed the transaction: "So 'Junior' called me and we talked, and he's, like, 'How much is the phone bill?' and I'm, 'Like, two-something.' And he was, like, 'All right then -- give me the address and stuff.' I'm like, 'What's going on?' He's like, 'I'm going to send it to her.'"

Cole also alleged that Harrick Jr. did schoolwork for him while Cole attended Lincoln Trail College in Robinson, Ill., and that Harrick Jr. gave Cole an A in a class at Georgia taught by Harrick Jr. and never attended by Cole.

Cole also told Schaap that Harrick Jr. paid hotel expenses for Cole in Georgia after he arrived and before he was enrolled in school and eligible to stay in a dormitory.

The NCAA source told ESPN.com's Andy Katz that Georgia would need to give an explanation for the Western Union statement, and that the NCAA would then re-interview the same subjects who were in the story. The source said it was premature to say if the allegations were major or secondary.

"It certainly was a very interesting report that begs many more questions,'' the source told Katz.

Jim Harrick Sr., Jim Harrick Jr., Dooley and Adams all refused to be interviewed for Schaap's story on ESPN.

The university did, however, send ESPN a copy of a letter bearing Cole's signature, in which Cole states that he was "in the Atlanta/Athens area around the Aug. 10. ... During this short duration, from the time summer school ended to the beginning of classes at UGA, I was, and have always been, able to take care of myself financially."

Cole claims Harrick Jr. wrote the letter and pressured him into signing it. Cole also told Schaap that he was bringing forward the allegations at this time because he felt the Harricks withdrew their support for him when he needed it most, at the time of the rape allegation against him.

Cole said that the elder Harrick was aware of the situation: "I talked to him and you know what I'm saying, and he's like, 'We hear, so we don't have to talk about it no more.' He was always the person that make things go -- but it was like 'We know, and we don't have to talk about it.'"

In a written statement released hours after Cole's interview aired on ESPN, Dooley said he takes accusations "very seriously."

He added that "Tony Cole has been asked on previous occasions if he had received anything that could be considered extra benefits and a document has been signed by him indicating that he had not."

Harrick Sr. was fired by UCLA for falsifying an expense report, and Rhode Island -- his next coaching stop -- just settled a sexual discrimination lawsuit against him. The clerk behind the claim at Rhode Island, Christine King, also alleged that she observed numerous NCAA violations by the coaching staff which included Harrick and Harrick Jr.

Cole was arrested in December for trespassing after he refused to leave the weight room in the Georgia student center, and he has since dropped out of school.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.