COLLEGE BASKETBALL NOTES

Tom Penders, the winningest basketball coach in University of Texas history but the target of a player revolt, resigned.

“It is with mixed emotions that I resign,” Penders told a news conference in Austin, Texas.

Penders’ resignation came 3 1/2 weeks after four players met with Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds and complained about the program. It also came after the release by assistant coach Eddie Oran of the academic progress report of center Luke Axtell.

Dodds said the search for a new coach will begin immediately.

Penders, who had a record of 208-110 at Texas, took the Longhorns to the NCAA tournament eight times in 10 seasons. He had four years remaining on a contract that pays him $550,000 per year.

Penders will be paid $643,000.

Texas’ vice provost and counsel to the president, Patricia Ohlendorf, said the university will take “appropriate disciplinary action” against Oran.

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Iowa Coach Tom Davis, whose Hawkeyes did not make the NCAA tournament and lost early in the NIT, announced that he will step downafter next season. . . . Tim Welsh was introduced in Providence, R.I., as the Friars’ new coach, replacing Pete Gillen, who left for Virginia. Welsh signed a seven-year contract, but financial terms were not disclosed. . . . Tim O’Toole, a former assistant at Seton Hall, was named coach at his alma mater Fairfield (Conn.). He replaces Paul Cormier, who was reappointed to an administrative post. . . . Two former Northwestern athletes and a suspected gambler pleaded not guilty in Chicago in a point-shaving scandal at the school. Dewey Williams, a former Wildcat basketball player, and Brian Irving, an accused bettor on Big Ten games, entered pleas in U.S. District Court. Brian Ballarini, a former football player at Northwestern, was charged in a separate indictment with running a campus bookmaking operation. He was also charged with threatening ex-basketball player Kenneth Dion Lee to get him to pay gambling debts.