Emanuel “Book” Richardson, a former University of Arizona basketball coach who admitted to taking bribes to steer players to sports managers when they go pro, is now the first of four coaches convicted in the kickback scheme to receive jail time.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in Manhattan slapped Richardson, an assistant coach who worked for the school from 2009 to his 2017 arrest, with a three-month sentence to be followed by two years of supervised release for his admission that he took $20,000 in bribes to encourage players to hire aspiring sports agent Christian Dawkins.

Prosecutors had called for Richardson, a New York City native who said he has lived in all boroughs except Staten Island to get a sentence of 1 1/2 to 2 years in prison.

Richardson’s sentencing came just one day after Tony Bland, a former assistant coach for the University of South Carolina, who admitted taking a $4,100 bribe, avoided a prison sentence and walked away from the federal courthouse in Manhattan with two years of probation.

Richardson, who says he has been blackballed from college basketball following the bribery scandal, expressed remorse to District Judge Edgardo Ramos, declining to read from prepared statements and instead “speaking from my heart” about disappointing the players he mentored.

“Whether they called me their uncle or they called me their dad, I’ve let them down,” Richardson said.

But Ramos said that the University of Arizona was a victim of Richardson’s wrongdoing — he cited a victim impact statement submitted by the university in which the school’s top lawyer argues that Richardson’s offenses hurt the school’s reputation and recruiting efforts and caused several student-athletes to change their minds about committing to the school.

Ramos also said that the student-athletes themselves were victims in the scheme.

“He clearly put himself ahead of those students and their financial well-being,” Ramos said.

Former Oklahoma State assistant coach Lamont Evans, who admitted to taking $22,000 in cash bribes, will come before Ramos for his sentencing on Friday. Like Bland and Richardson, he has asked for probation.