SIDELINES : Missouri’s Coach Denies Giving False Material to NCAA Probers

University of Missouri Coach Norm Stewart denied today that he had provided false or misleading information to NCAA investigators looking into alleged wrongdoing in the school’s basketball program.

“I intend to contest the NCAA’s recent allegation at every stage of the proceeding,” Stewart said in a nine-page statement distributed before his Kansas City news conference.

“During my 33 years of coaching I have never been connected with an NCAA rules-infraction case until this one,” Stewart said.

Stewart said almost all the allegations in the letter of inquiry issued in May by the NCAA were attributable to four individuals and their families or friends.

“Each one of these four individuals has publicly expressed a bias against the university and the coach, and each one of these individuals has a motive to fabricate or to at least embellish the facts,” he said in his statement.

“For several of the allegations, however, the evidence boils down to a conflict of testimony between disgruntled individuals, who have a motive to lie, on the one hand and a coaching staff on the other hand.

“My coaching staff has been in good standing for over seven decades collectively,” he said. “For those allegations where the evidence boils down to us versus them I feel the question should be resolved in favor of the coaching staff.”