Cal Gets Hit Hard By NCAA

The fallout from the ill-fated Todd Bozeman era stung the University of California in a big way Thursday when the NCAA put the basketball program on three years’ probation, including a ban on postseason play in 1998.

The NCAA also reduced Cal’s scholarships by two for the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons. Additionally, the school will forfeit 28 wins from the 1994-95 and 1995-96 seasons.

The tournament ban might have come at an opportune time. The Bears will be in a full rebuilding mode after losing the top seven players from last year’s Sweet 16 team, including senior guard Ed Gray, the Pacific 10 Conference player of the year, and junior forward Tony Gonzalez, an outstanding tight end who opted for the NFL and was a first-round pick of the Kansas City Chiefs.

“This is one of the most serious infractions we’ve seen in a long time,” said David Swank, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma who chaired the six-member Committee of Infractions panel.

“The number of violations in this case are actually quite limited, but it is one of the most serious cases this committee has considered in recent years. [It involved] significant cash payments to the parents of a student-athlete by the head coach.”

Bozeman was forced to resign in August. After first denying it, he admitted to making payments of $30,000 from 1994-96 to the parents of Los Angeles-area point guard Jelani Gardner, who is now at Pepperdine.

Most of the blame for the sanctions was directed at Bozeman, and it was backed up by another decision by the committee: If he applies for an athletically related job at an NCAA school in the next eight years, Bozeman must appear before the Committee of Infractions and face potential restrictions on his employment. The NCAA said it is the fourth-longest period it has handed down on a coach.

Bozeman, who is not coaching, did not help himself by making payments to the Gardners even while another NCAA investigation--into Cal’s recruitment of Shareef Abdur-Rahim--was being conducted and later “providing false and misleading information to the committee and to the university,” Swank said.

Cal also has agreed to return about $54,000 to the NCAA, which is 90% of its share of revenue from the 1996 NCAA tournament. One of its forfeited victories came in the 1994-95 season at UCLA; it is unclear whether UCLA will be credited with a win in that game.

Bozeman, in a statement from his home in Maryland, apologized for his actions.

“While head men’s basketball coach at Cal, I committed several violations of NCAA legislation in connection with the recruitment of one student-athlete,” said Bozeman, who led the Bears to a 63-35 record in 3 1/2 years. “These violations were the result of a serious mistake in judgment on my part.”

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Times staff writer Chris Dufresne contributed to this story.