Even the most naive college basketball fan has to admit that the 21st century version of the NCAA game is far from the haven for conscientious student-athletes that university presidents and trustees like to envision. While win-at-all-costs boosters and ridiculously lenient academic "advisors" have long been a staple of Division I hoops, a barrage of disturbing revelations have surfaced over the past year-and-a-half.

There was the case last March of academic fraud at the University of Georgia, where head coach Jim Harrick's son, Jim Jr., developed a phantom physical education course that never actually convened. And at St. Bonaventure last spring, University President Robert Wickenheiser resigned after acknowledging that he approved the transfer criteria of basketball star Jamil Terrell.

Terrell came from tiny Georgia Coastal Community College, where his highest academic honor was a welding degree.

As upsetting as those allegations were to the NCAA community, nothing could prepare the association for the events of this past summer.

Baylor University, in Waco, Texas (a city known best for housing deceased cult leader David Koresh), has a little over 13,000 undergraduates and a major sports program in the prestigious Big 12 Conference, which also includes the University of Texas, University of Kansas and University of Oklahoma.

Aside from short stints of NCAA-imposed probation in 1986 (illegal cash benefits to a player) and 1994 (the FBI convicted coaches for completing players' homework), Baylor is a relatively obscure institution, far removed from the radars of most avid college sports fans. Its teams have struggled for success in most major sports, producing just one NBA player (Sixers center Brian Skinner) over the past decade.

That anonymity, however, came crashing down in late June when Baylor forward Patrick Dennehy, a Santa Clara, Calif. native (and recent transfer from the University of New Mexico) was officially pronounced missing. When a basketball program such as Baylor's is making headlines on all of America's 24-hour cable news outlets, it's highly probably that the news is very bad.

While the case remains sketchy, with a few pieces left to the puzzle, the chain of events is as follows.

On July 10, about a month after Dennehy's mysterious disappearance was made public, Baylor head coach Dave Bliss (set to begin his fourth season at the school) broke the school's silence to speak with the media. "This situation is uncharted waters," Bliss said. "We're going through something that is an unbelievably bad nightmare."

"I appreciate being the basketball coach at Baylor University," Bliss continued. "I'm confronted with something completely off the charts, but I'm also in charge of steering through this."

Bliss, a veteran college basketball coach who has held head coaching posts at Oklahoma, Southern Methodist University and the University of New Mexico (where he recruited Dennehy), was right on one front. A case of homicide in the NCAA was without precedent, and the case soon grew even more bizarre.

On July 21, Dennehy's teammate and close friend, junior guard Carlton Dotson, was arrested and jailed in his home state of Maryland. Just four days later, Dennehy's body was discovered in a field near the Baylor campus. An autopsy report revealed that the 21-year-old had been shot twice in the head.

Dotson, also 21, was indicted on a murder charge on August 27, and now faces a maximum penalty of life in prison as he awaits Texas Governor Rick Perry's approval of extradition to that state. While District Attorney John Segrest has refused to discuss motive in the case, sources close to the team have stepped forward to suggest widespread substance abuse among team members.

Dotson disputes police claims that he confessed to shooting Dennehy in a sworn affidavit to the FBI.

Dotson's estranged wife, Melissa Kethley, recently told the Dallas Morning News that Baylor players would routinely smoke pot and drink immediately before team practices. Sonya Hart, whose son Robert briefly roomed with Dotson before leaving the team in February, told that same paper that she warned the school about alcoholism and drugs surrounding the team.

Bliss, momentarily out of the limelight while Dotson was tracked down, soon became the focal point of the investigation. In early August, the FBI released tapes secretly recorded by assistant coach Abar Rouse featured Bliss encouraging Baylor players to lie to investigators by giving them the false impression that Dennehy paid his tuition by dealing drugs.

On August 8, Bliss and Athletic Director Tom Stanton (who had been with the school for five years) resigned as Baylor placed itself on two years' probation. Bliss has been portrayed as the archetype of the grizzled college basketball coach given free reign by the NCAA to dodge a corrupted system.

Initial reaction to Bliss' resignation was surprisingly empathetic. Brian O'Neill, who assissted Bliss at both New Mexico and Baylor, was prescient in his remarks.

"I think a lot of NCAA men's basketball programs operate in a gray area," he said. "And I think once the NCAA was allowed to investigate the program, a lot of those things in the gray area were exposed and, therefore, he may have felt responsible for some of those things that transpired."

"Once you start an internal investigation in your school or any school, some dirt is going to come up in some cases," O'Neill added. "And with all the negative publicity swirling around Pat (Dennehy) ... there was going to be some other disheartening things that would come out."

"By trying to muck up a murder investigation," Caulton Tudor of KnoxNews.com writes, "shuffling money under the table to players and possibly filming opposing teams' practice sessions, Bliss turned the Baylor basketball offices into an open-air sewage dump."

Jesse Jackson of the controversial Rainbow Coalition is urging the international basketball community to ostracize Bliss and ban him from coaching again. "He perpetuated a racial stereotype," Jackson said, "by casting young Dennehy as a drug pusher. His lie was based on belief that people would accept that Dennehy, a black man, was a thug who sold drugs."

The fallout from the Baylor scandal has come in an unbelievably swift manner.

On August 20, Jeff Howard, the NCAA's director of public relations, honored a request made by Baylor President Robert Sloane Jr. that all basketball players who wish to transfer out of Baylor be exempt from the standard NCAA rule that they sit out a year before competing again.

Already, Baylor's top scorer and rebounder from a year ago, Lawrence Roberts, has announced his intention to continue his career at Mississippi State. Junior forward Kenny Taylor will move on to the University of Texas, junior guard John Lucas III will play for Eddie Sutton at Oklahoma State and sophomore forward Tommy Swanson will also depart.

Baylor has announced that on September 4, the school will host a free rally led by popular entertainer/comedian Bill Cosby to lift the spirits of the student body after a trying summer. Cosby, a fixture at his alma mater of Temple University and numerous commencement ceremonies around the country, has long lauded Baylor's Christian mission.

"Over the years I have come to know some of the outstanding students, faculty and staff at Baylor," Cosby said, "and I know it's been a tough few months for them. So I want to let the world know what a great place this is."

On August 22, Baylor announced the hiring of 32-year-old Valparaiso head coach Scott Drew, who was 20-11 in his only season at the northern Indiana school. Valpo, a Lutheran-affiliated school of 3,600, competes in the Mid-Continent Conference with the likes of Chicago State and Oral Roberts University.

Scott's father Homer spent 14 seasons at Valpo, compiling a 236-185 record, and leading the Crusaders to the NCAA's Round of 16 in 1998 with the help of another son, Bryce.

"I can't wait for the new image for Baylor to come," the younger Drew said recently. "I really enjoy working with young people and helping them achieve their goals: graduating, making the NCAA Tournament, reaching the professional ranks.