NCAA, UNLV Attempt to Resolve Case : College basketball: Representatives trying to set up a meeting for school to review evidence.

After a year-long interruption caused by legal questions, officials from the NCAA and the University of Nevada Las Vegas have revived efforts to resolve the 5-year-old infractions case pending against the UNLV basketball program.

The renewed attempt to end the case is being made in the wake of a federal judge’s decision in June that voided a Nevada law regulating the NCAA enforcement process.

NCAA and UNLV representatives confirm that they are working to set up a meeting at which the school would review evidence collected by the NCAA. Such a meeting is usually the final step before a case is heard by the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions.

The case was removed from active status by the NCAA last summer after lawyers for Jerry Tarkanian, then the Rebels’ coach, notified the NCAA that the case had to be processed in accordance with Nevada law.

The NCAA sued last November in U.S. district court in Reno, challenging the constitutionality of the statute, which requires NCAA enforcement proceedings involving Nevada schools to conform to standards of legal due process. Defendants included Tarkanian, former UNLV assistant coaches Tim Grgurich and Ron Ganulin and former UNLV basketball academic adviser Shelley Fischer.

In a ruling handed down June 5, U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben struck down the law. He also enjoined the defendants from seeking protection under the statute.

As a result, the NCAA enforcement staff and the UNLV administration are now trying to resolve the case.

“One step at a time, we’re committed to trying to move forward,” said Brad Booke, UNLV legal counsel. “Of course, it’s hard to know what’s going to happen, because virtually everything that’s happened in this (case) has been unexpected.”

As the matter now stands, the NCAA has charged the UNLV basketball program with rules violations in nearly 40 areas. All of the alleged violations occurred when the program was headed by Tarkanian, who left the school after last season and is now the coach of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs.

Thus, the brunt of any penalties arising from the case will be born by UNLV and Tarkanian’s successor, Rollie Massimino.

Many of the charges stem from the Rebels’ recruiting of former New York high school star Lloyd Daniels in 1986 and ’87. The case also includes more recent allegations concerning UNLV’s recruiting of Ed O’Bannon, former Lakewood Artesia High star now at UCLA.

UNLV provided the NCAA with a formal response to the allegations, but the case was removed from the NCAA’s agenda before the parties could meet for a prehearing conference last September.

Typically, such a conference involves an airing of the issues between the NCAA and the school involved, including a review of the NCAA’s evidence, before taking the matter to the Committee on Infractions. The committee then decides which allegations are valid and what sanctions, if any, should be imposed.

Booke said he has been talking to NCAA enforcement officials in recent weeks about the prospect of scheduling a meeting at which the NCAA’s evidence would be reviewed by school officials.

Asked if there are plans for a prehearing conference in the UNLV case, David Berst, the NCAA’s assistant executive director for enforcement, said: “Well, at least we are communicating again and attempting to move forward by having appropriate individuals review documents and so forth.”

Tarkanian and other defendants in the NCAA’s lawsuit have filed a notice of appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.