For every shocker, there was a school facing penalties for NCAA violations. For each great game, it seemed there was a conference changing membership. For milestone victories, there were coaches moving from big-time job to big-time job.

But nothing could offset what happened at Baylor, a scandal that had the sport’s coaches call a meeting to discuss the future of their profession.

In late June, Baylor coaches said it had been weeks since they had heard from junior center Patrick Dennehy. About a month later, the body of the 21-year-old was found in a rock quarry near campus, and Dennehy’s teammate, Carlton Dotson, was charged with the murder.

College basketball was stunned, and it was about to get worse.

AP File Photo

Coach Dave Bliss resigned when major violations were uncovered in the program. A week later, secretly recorded tapes revealed Bliss told his staff and players to lie to investigators and say Dennehy had paid his tuition by dealing drugs.

“The bizarre circumstances painted me into a corner and I chose the wrong way to react,” said Bliss, a head coach for 28 seasons. “I have cooperated completely and will continue to do so because I have disappointed a lot of people.”

He never could begin to count them.

“I am shocked and disappointed in the things that Dave has done,” Baylor president Robert Sloan said. “All of us are completely surprised at the things he has admitted and what we have discovered.”

Bliss was a former assistant to Bob Knight.

“Dave, I think, by his own admission, obviously used a lot of really poor judgment in some things that he did and said,” Knight, the Texas Tech coach, said of his former aide. “Friendship aside, those are just some things in athletics that you just can’t condone.”

Before the end of the season, Georgia and Fresno State withdrew their teams from postseason play because of academic fraud. St. Bonaventure forfeited two games when players boycotted after a player was declared ineligible. In May, Larry Eustachy resigned as coach at Iowa State after pictures of him drinking with students from other schools surfaced.

In October, just before practice for this season began, almost all of the Division One coaches met in a summit in Chicago to discuss what happened in the previous months and come up with a code of ethics and recommendations to the NCAA.

“Two days before practice starts, 300 Division One head basketball coaches came together,” NCAA president Myles Brand said. “This doesn’t happen often, if ever, in the past. This was an important event.”

One of the coaches who didn’t attend was Knight.

“On some people that have spoken on that, I would have rather listened to Saddam Hussein speak on civil rights than to some people speak about ethics,” he said.

Ethics were also discussed when schools started to move from one conference to another, many of the changes not to take place until 2005.

In moves driven by football and the money it generates, Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College will go from the Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference; Charlotte and Saint Louis will go from Conference USA to the Atlantic 10; and Marquette, DePaul, Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida will all go from Conference USA to the Big East.

There were changes this year on some of the biggest benches in the sport with three of the most successful programs in history getting new coaches.

Matt Doherty’s firing at North Carolina started the run that saw Roy Williams go from Kansas to replace him and Bill Self go from Illinois to Kansas. Ben Howland moved from Pittsburgh to replace Steve Lavin at UCLA.

Jim Phelan retired after his 49th season at Mount St. Mary’s and coaches around the country, including Williams, Bob Huggins of Cincinnati and John Calipari of Memphis, saluted him by donning bow ties. Phelan wore his trademark tie one last time in a 60-56 victory over Central Connecticut State.

There was plenty to celebrate on the court, however.

Anthony led the Orangemen to an 81-78 victory over Kansas in the championship game in New Orleans in a Final Four that also included Marquette and Texas.

David West of Xavier was the consensus national player of the year and he led an All-America team that included fellow seniors Josh Howard of Wake Forest and Nick Collison of Kansas, junior Dwyane Wade of Marquette and sophomore T.J. Ford of Texas.

Kentucky’s Tubby Smith was selected coach of the year after leading the Wildcats to a 32-4 record, a No. 1 ranking in the final poll and a 26-game winning streak that ended with a loss to Marquette one game before the Final Four.

Like Syracuse, Northeastern State Oklahoma in Division II and Williams College in Division III, each won their first national championship.

Anthony scored 33 points in the semifinal win over Texas and had 20 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists in the title game.

“I’ve never had a feeling like this,” said Anthony, who left for the NBA after his one season at Syracuse. “This is the best feeling I’ve ever had in my life.”

It was good enough for college basketball for a few months.