NCAA HEATING UP INVESTIGATION; SE HOPES TO AVOID GETTING BURNED IN FLORIDA

Several Southeast Missouri State University officials -- including head men's basketball coach Gary Garner -- are getting ready for a trip to Florida, but they're not going to the sunshine state for a vacation.

The Southeast contingent will depart for Fort Myers on Friday. At 8:30 a.m. (eastern time) on Saturday, the group will meet in front of the NCAA Infractions Committee to answer any kinds of questions the committee has regarding the ongoing NCAA investigation of the school's men's basketball program.

Making the trip to Florida from Southeast will be: president Dale Nitzschke; executive vice present Ken Dobbins; Board of Regents president Donald Dickerson; NCAA faculty representative Joe Low; interim athletic director Carroll Williams; assistant athletic director in charge of compliance Alicia Scott; and Garner, who might be forced to miss Saturday night's home game against Eastern Kentucky.

"The NCAA has requested all those people be there," said Williams. "Our cooperation is required, it's desired and we want to be there to cooperate as well as we can."

Dan Beebe, commissioner of the Ohio Valley Conference, is also planning to attend.

Williams emphasized that no ruling by the NCAA will be made at Saturday's meeting. He expects the NCAA to release its findings and a ruling about three weeks from Saturday.

"We have a description of the kinds of things that will occur (Saturday), but it's pretty much up to them," Williams said. "We're there to answer questions, to listen, to help them out in any way. They will go over all the details we have with them and I presume they will ask us a lot of questions."

Southeast faces possible sanctions for alleged violations committed by the staff of former basketball coach Ron Shumate. Randy Curl, a former assistant coach under Shumate, has been charged by the Cape Girardeau County prosecuting attorney's office with stealing from the university in connection with alleged payments to a player for work that was not performed.

Shumate, the winningest basketball coach in Southeast history, will reportedly attend Saturday's meeting along with his lawyer.

Even though the NCAA has termed the alleged violations major in nature, Williams said he and other university officials are hopeful Southeast will not be penalized too severely because the school took several actions on its own, including voluntarily giving up a scholarship and dismissing the coaching staff under which the alleged violations took place.

"We're all anxious to see what happens," Williams said.

Asked if he had a gut feeling about the severity of any potential penalties, Williams said, "No I don't. But Dr. Nitzschke and Dr. Dobbins have really made a case for explaining to the NCAA how we (the university) have reacted quickly, cooperated, done things by the book.

"I think we have really been a model for what other schools have been encouraged to do in the past when some violations occur. We've been very cooperative with our efforts and I think that should really help us."

Among potential sanctions the NCAA could hand down to Southeast's men's basketball program is a reduction in scholarships and not being eligible for the NCAA Tournament for a year or more, which would in turn bump the Indians from competing in the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament.

This year's OVC Tournament is scheduled to begin Feb. 24 and Southeast figures to have learned of its fate with the NCAA a few days before then. So there is a very real possibility the Indians won't be able to participate in this year's league tourney.

"That's something you really don't like to think about, but it's definitely a possibility," said Garner, the Indians' first-year head coach who was not at Southeast when the alleged violations occurred. "But as a coach, you just have to take it one game at a time and not even try to think that far ahead."

Curl has been charged with paying David Montgomery, a 6-foot-8 junior who still plays for the Indians, for work he didn't perform in the fall of 1995. Montgomery has testified that he knew he was getting paid for work he did not perform.

Montgomery has also said he received $1,100 in cash from Shumate in the fall of 1995 that went toward his school tuition. When Montgomery transferred to Southeast from Central Arkansas in 1995, he wasn't on a basketball scholarship.

Montgomery has been able to retain his eligibility at Southeast because of what the NCAA calls "limited immunity" for providing information on the alleged violations.

Southeast fired Shumate, who was 306-171 in 16 seasons at Southeast, and his staff last May. When he was fired, Shumate was adamant in defending himself and the kind of clean program he ran.

"I remain confident that I will be exonerated and that I have committed no significant or major violations," said Shumate on the day he was dismissed. "Ron Shumate has not done anything wrong. Ron Shumate has run the cleanest program in the OVC, the cleanest program in America. Period."

In just a matter of weeks, the public will find out just how much merit those comments by Shumate actually held.