No postseason hoops for 'Dogs

Hundreds of improper phone calls by former coach cost team mid-March play

By Laban Pelz
The Collegian

Fresno State banned its men’s basketball team from 2006 postseason play Friday.

This and other self-imposed sanctions came after the NCAA determined last week that infractions committed by former head coach Ray Lopes were major.

“I think the good-faith effort will help us,” associate athletic director Betsy Mosher said of taking preemptive action against any penalties the NCAA might impose on the team or the university.

The ban includes the team’s participation in the National Invitational Tournament and the WAC tournament.

“This week it all came to fruition,” head coach Steve Cleveland said. “I’ve got a locker room full of disappointed young men. There’s tears there.”

Mosher, Cleveland and athletic director Thomas Boeh said the decision is part of a new start for the school.

“We need a culture of compliance here at Fresno State,” Boeh said. “As we try to change the culture it is going to be difficult.”

The NCAA found that Lopes and former coaching staff members had placed between 400 and 500 improper phone calls to potential recruits between the spring of 2002 and fall 2004.

Lopes resigned last March and Cleveland was hired in April. Boeh is also in his first year at Fresno State as former athletic director Scott Johnson resigned in February.

“This is a new beginning,” Boeh said. “When you have a new beginning the first thing is to take care of the bad things.

“Within a year, 18 months, we’ll have a clean slate, and we can move forward with men’s basketball.”

Other restrictions imposed by the school Friday include limitations on visits and phone calls the basketball team’s coaching staff makes for recruiting purposes:

•For the 2005-2006 academic year official recruiting visits will be cut from 12 to six.

•For the ’05-’06 and ’07-’08 years the team’s recruiting period will be limited from 130 to 86 days.

•Phone calls, which Boeh noted were “the genesis of these violations,” may not be made to high school sophomores in July 2006, the recruiting period for that age group.

•Only one call may be made to each prospective junior in that same period.

•The university will develop a new phone call monitoring system by December 2005.

Fresno State also extended its probationary period through December 2007.

“Hopefully this will get us back in the good graces of the NCAA and back into the national spotlight,” Boeh said.

Boeh, Mosher and Cleveland did not disclose which players on the team may have been on the receiving end of those improper calls, but Mosher did say players’ “eligibility is fine.”

Additionally, Boeh said one bright spot for players is there are no seniors on the roster and all can return.

Cleveland said as of Friday no players had spoken of transferring, and Boeh said he would never hold any players back if they wanted to leave, though inter-conference transfers would be another matter.

Boeh also said the NCAA could still impose harsher sanctions on Fresno State, as the school is deemed a repeat-violator. Final action by the NCAA is anticipated in February 2006 when the Committee on Infractions is expected to meet.

Judging by case-precedent, Mosher said she doesn’t anticipate men’s basketball at Fresno State will be nullified.

Mosher also said other sports at Fresno State now need to watch their step, as there is no margin for error.

“It’s not just basketball,” she said. “We walk the line.”

Boeh, Mosher, Cleveland and some players said the level of last week’s developments was unexpected.

“Coming in we knew we had compliance issues,” Mosher said. “I’m not sure we knew the extent.”

Cleveland said when coming to Fresno State he understood the NCAA issues may pose difficult times for the team, but “I don’t think any of us understood the severity.”

He also said players were informed of the team’s troubles when they were recruited.

“We talk about everything. They knew,” Cleveland said. “They do their homework, and felt that with a new coaching staff, a new environment, they had a chance.”

Jeff Jackson, a freshman guard out of Clovis West, said the magnitude of the violations was greater than he or his teammates had thought.

“Once Coach Cleveland was named coach I thought it was cleaned up,” he said. “I didn’t think it was this serious.”

Jackson took solace in the fact that the team can still win the WAC regular-season title, but said “the whole summer, everything we worked for, is shot.

“It doesn’t make sense to punish us.”

Cleveland said winning the WAC championship is now the team’s battle cry.

“You can sit around and feel sorry for yourself, or you can stay the course,” he said. “We will get through this.”

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