Advertisement

Missouri Penalized by the NCAA

Share
From Times Staff and Wire Reports

Missouri’s basketball team was put on three years’ probation Wednesday for NCAA recruiting violations but avoided a ban on postseason play.

The infractions committee took away one scholarship next year and two in 2006-07 and limited all basketball coaches to recruiting on campus until November 2005.

“We felt the off-campus ban would be a significant statement on the violations and removes the criticism of punishing current student-athletes,” committee Chairman Thomas Yeager said.

Advertisement

The penalty prevents coaches from visiting high schools, making home visits, attending summer camps or giving speeches at high-school awards banquets. Yeager said the ban had not been imposed since 1990 when Illinois’ basketball team was punished.

Missouri Chancellor Brady Deaton said the school would not appeal.

Coach Quin Snyder said he hoped the Tigers would still be competitive in recruiting because of the school’s new $75-million arena.

The committee found the Tigers violated NCAA recruiting rules from 1999 to 2003 and rejected the school’s explanation that most of the violations were inadvertent.

“The men’s basketball staff had the benefit of extensive rules education and compliance procedures,” the committee said. “Nevertheless, the men’s basketball staff took risks and pushed the limits with respect to recruiting legislation, particularly while recruiting top prospects.”

The case came to light when former point guard Ricky Clemons accused former assistant coach Tony Harvey of paying him $250. Harvey later resigned.

The committee did not mention Clemons or Harvey by name in its report but acknowledged that an assistant coach violated NCAA rules by buying meals, providing transportation and illegally contacting recruits and their families.

Advertisement

*

Reporters picked Pacific and Utah State, which shared the regular-season men’s basketball title last season, to finish first again in the Big West Conference.

Cal State Northridge got the two other first-place votes and was picked to finish third.

Tennis

Andy Roddick surged into the third round of the Paris Masters with a 6-2, 6-2 rout of Sargis Sargsian. Sixth-seeded Marat Safin -- yelling at himself and the umpire and slamming his racket -- defeated Ivan Ljubicic, 6-7 (1), 6-3, 7-5. Five other seeded players -- No. 7 Gaston Gaudio, No. 10 Tommy Robredo, No. 12 Dominik Hrbaty, No. 15 Fernando Gonzalez and No. 16 Jiri Novak -- lost in the second round.

*

Jennifer Capriati survived a scare from Meghann Shaughnessy, winning, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, to advance to the quarterfinals of the Advanta Tennis Championships at Villanova, Pa.

Miscellany

Tyler Hamilton’s cycling team is challenging the method of a drug test that nearly cost him his Olympic gold medal and could result in a two-year ban.

An initial test at the Athens Games suggested he had received an endurance-boosting blood transfusion. But the case was dropped after his backup sample was mistakenly frozen, leaving too few red blood cells to analyze.

While he got to keep his time-trial gold medal, he faces a possible ban because of a positive test two weeks after the Olympics.

Advertisement

Phonak team manager Urs Freuler told Associated Press the team has appointed five experts to analyze Hamilton’s two positive samples.

“What we want is just the truth,” Freuler said. “Is it so, or is it not so?”

*

UCLA men’s volleyball Coach Al Scates and Long Beach State women’s assistant coach Debbie Green-Vargas will be inducted into the American Volleyball Coaches Assn. Hall of Fame on Dec. 16 at the national convention in Long Beach.

Passings

Former Nashville Predator center Sergei Zholtok died in his native Latvia of an apparent heart ailment. He was 31. Zholtok was playing for Riga 2000 this year during the NHL lockout.

Advertisement