Huggins: Sanctions take a toll

Steve Addy

Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2000 | 10:38 a.m.

Despite Cincinnati's 40-point superiority over UNLV on the basketball court last season, the programs share a bond that neither finds flattering.

Though both were eliminated by Tulsa on the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament last March in Nashville, that similarity isn't the topic at hand.

Probation is.

Cincinnati is coming off two years of NCAA probation due to various violations, while the Rebels are almost certain to be put on probation next month when the NCAA Committee on Infractions rules on violations stemming from the 1996 recruitment of Lamar Odom.

UNLV last month self-imposed a series of penalties, hoping to head off harsher sanctions by the NCAA. The Rebels docked themselves one scholarship per season for 2000-01 and 2001-02, and placed limits on coach Bill Bayno's off-campus recruiting.

However, the same strategy did not work for Cincinnati in 1998, when the NCAA punished the Bearcats for violations pertaining to players' housing and employment, and the actions of a booster. The NCAA added penalties to the school's self-sanctions, including the probation, which ended August 7.

Overlooking their differences on the court, where Cincinnati and UNLV will meet again Dec. 16 in the Las Vegas Showdown, the Bearcats' continued success under probation should at least provide hope to the Rebels.

Coach Bob Huggins' team went 29-4 last season, swept Conference USA with a 16-0 record and earned its ninth straight NCAA tournament bid with the No. 2 seed in the South Regional. Missing NCAA player of the year Kenyon Martin because of a broken foot, Cincinnati lost to Tulsa in the second round.

Despite the early exit, Cincinnati proved that a team with recruiting restrictions can survive and thrive, which jibes with Bayno's hopes and suppositions about UNLV's future.

However, Huggins said the Rebels will eventually pay a price for losing scholarships, just as the Bearcats are now. Cincinnati was docked three scholarships over two years and has no seniors on its 11-man roster.

"It's a matter of hurting you now or hurting you later," Huggins said Monday at Stallion Mountain Country Club.

"We have no seniors because of what (the NCAA) did to us. Three scholarships might not seem like much, but when football coaches lose three, they go crazy, and they've got 120 players. (Probation) hurts the continuity of your program, and it certainly hurt us."

However, Huggins assured UNLV that the worst is probably over.

"What hurts most is the uncertainty (before the sanctions)," he said. "The hardest thing to overcome is the stuff (opposing schools) tell the kids you're trying to recruit. We get negatively recruited all the time, but it happened even more before (the NCAA ruled).

"Once everything is out in the open, it's not so bad, but the time leading up to (probation), that's the hard part."

So far, UNLV's sanctions don't seem to have hurt its recruiting. The Rebels have signed two highly regarded players -- JC point guard Marcus Banks and high school center Simplice Njoya -- and are under consideration by other top prospects.

Last March, however, they lost JC point guard Kevin Bradley to Utah, and he admitted he was worried about the Rebels' future in light of the NCAA investigation.

Huggins said he always raised the topic of probation with potential recruits, but that the recruits usually beat him to it.

"The kids would ask and so would their parents," he said. "We would try to deal with it head-on, with the facts. That's the best way, the only way."