Shortly before the start of the 1996–97 season, he was accused of falsifying receipts at a student-athlete recruiting dinner when two current players, Cameron Dollar and Charles O'Bannon, joined the table.

Since Harrick paid for the entire meal, it amounted to an improper extra benefit for Dollar and O'Bannon.

On November 6, 1996, Dalis and school chancellor Chuck Young gave Harrick an ultimatum: resign by the next morning or be fired.

Although picking up the tab for Dollar and O'Bannon was a secondary violation at best, Young and Dalis felt Harrick's attempted cover-up was unforgivable.

During the 1998 tournament, the Rams upset Kansas in the second round and reached the Midwest Regional finals but were defeated by Stanford 79–77.

In his second season, he managed to recruit Lamar Odom and led the Rams to their first Atlantic 10 Conference tournament title.

His son, Jim Harrick Jr., a Georgia assistant, got into trouble for paying $300 in expenses for one of his players, Tony Cole.

An NCAA investigation confirmed the violations, also finding that six players did not pay for over $1,500 of long-distance telephone calls in December 2001.

Harrick Jr. was given a seven-year show-cause penalty order for his role in the academic fraud, as well as telling two of the players involved to lie to the NCAA.

After Georgia, Harrick worked as a scout for the NBA's Denver Nuggets and helped develop basketball in China.

[4] On June 13, 2006, Harrick accepted the head coaching position for the Bakersfield Jam, an NBA Development League team.

[5] Harrick later became a college basketball analyst for Prime Ticket, the Southern California affiliate of Fox Sports Net.