ESPN Men's Basketball

Michael Dunigan is preparing for the NBA draft after playing for a year in Israel and Estonia following his abrupt departure from Oregon. He decided to turn pro following the arrival of new coach Dana Altman, and soon afterward, the school announced it would seek assistance from the Pac-10 after receiving information about former players regarding their eligibility.

Andy Katz reported that Oregon interviewed Dunigan as part of its investigation, but the matter has since been turned over to the NCAA. According to The Register-Guard, the NCAA also requested a meeting with Dunigan but didn't get one.

Dunigan has not spoken with NCAA representatives on the issue, though a request for a meeting was made to Dunigan’s attorney, George Andrews, who declined on his client’s behalf.

"We didn't feel we had anything we wanted or needed to share with them," Andrews said, adding that Dunigan "didn't leave Oregon for anything that happened off the court. ... There was no issue related to him doing anything improperly," such as a possible NCAA violation

Dunigan said he would have been eligible for his junior season at Oregon.

Dunigan of course was well within his rights to decline the meeting with investigators given that the NCAA has no subpoena power. He has denied that his eligibility was in question and isn't obligated to say anything.

But the NCAA investigation does continue to loom over Oregon. Altman and his staff don't have anything to do with the probe, yet they could be hampered by possible sanctions that might come out of it.

The Ducks had a surprising season after Dunigan left and others transferred in the wake of Ernie Kent's firing. Winning the CBI should give the team momentum heading into this year at a time when the Pac-12 lacks a sure-fire favorite.

It would be best for all involved if the NCAA investigation turns up nothing. For Dunigan, his time at Oregon is already in the rear-view mirror.

The NCAA is now leading the process in an investigation into the eligibility of former Oregon men's basketball players, athletic director Rob Mullens told The Register-Guard.

The school first contacted the Pac-10 on Aug. 2 to seek help in an investigation that includes a look into whether center Michael Dunigan received extra benefits while playing for the school before abruptly turning pro.

The investigation has cast a shadow over the program during coach Dana Altman's first offseason. Mullens, whose hiring came after Altman's, told the paper that Oregon has yet to consider self-imposing sanctions.

"We're not near that point, he said. "There's still a lot of information to be gathered by the NCAA."

If violations did occur, the NCAA would have to rule whether they were major or secondary, the latter defined as "isolated or inadvertent in nature, provides or is intended to provide minimal recruiting, competitive or other advantage, and does not include any significant recruiting inducement or extra benefit."

Mullens would not speculate on whether the allegations, if proven, would rise to the level of a major violation.

Oregon has taken so many hits this offseason that even the Ducks player Athlon put on the cover of its preview magazine is no longer on the team. But now, Dana Altman has begun the process rebuilding the roster.

The recent departures of center Michael Dunigan (playing overseas) and guard LeKendric Longmire (academics) left the team with eight scholarship players. Oregon has added German center Martin Seiferth and also could get immediate help from a transfer in former Jacksonville State guard Jay-R Strowbridge.

Seiferth gives the Ducks a 6-foot-10 presence, and the team is in a wait-and-see mode with the NCAA clearing Strowbridge to play this season after he graduated from Jacksonville State and enrolled at Oregon as a graduate student.

If Strowbridge's waiver is granted, Oregon would get a point guard who had previously decided on playing his senior season with Arkansas State before citing an NCAA investigation into the program as his reason for leaving.

While patching together a team remains a work in progress, just being able to announce roster additions rather than subtractions has to be a good feeling for Altman.

And that's not all. Looking toward the future, Altman has secured verbal commitments from three recruits -- point guard Bruce Barron (86th-ranked by ESPNU) , shooting guard Brett Kingma, and power forward Austin Kuemper.

The immediate future might not appear very bright for the Ducks, but help is at the very least on the way.

Oregon will be down to eight scholarship players if it is determined that guard LeKendric Longmire is ineligible for the season.

The Register-Guard reports that this is likely to happen due to Longmire's academics and that the senior currently isn't participating in individual workouts.

"It doesn’t change much," [coach Dana] Altman said of working out with a reduced roster. "We're fine. ... The guys are working hard and I would prefer to talk about the guys who are here."

Altman did say that "maybe" the roster could be augmented with scholarship players, with the possibility that one or more transfers could enroll at the UO in the next week. Altman also plans to hold tryouts for possible walk-ons, after school starts.

Longmire, who at this time is the team's second-leading returning rebounder, would be joining a long list of players unavailable for Altman, who has dealt with plenty of bad news in the first few months of his tenure.

Michael Dunigan abruptly turned pro earlier this month and is among the subjects of an extra benefits investigation. Four players have transferred, including three who decided to leave during the school's lengthy coaching search.

Altman is left not only with a short-handed roster, but one that was also banged-up enough for him to cancel a scheduled preseason tour of Italy.

Forward Joevan Catron is working his way back from missing nearly all of last season with a back injury, and two walk-ons have been hurt as well.

If the Ducks end up pulling students out of the stands at Matthew Knight Arena and handing them jerseys, you'll know things have gotten worse.

Oregon coach Dana Altman knows all about bad timing.

He once ditched a job at Arkansas after about 24 hours on the job, and then when he got a second chance at making a move, three Oregon players had already decided to transfer by the time he got there.

Now before Altman has even coached one game, Oregon is looking into whether Michael Dunigan received extra benefits during the 6-foot-10 center's two seasons with the program.

Dunigan appeared to leave the team abruptly, practicing for an Italy preseason tour with the Ducks that was eventually called off and then signing a three-year contract with an Israeli team in a move that was announced by Hapoel Migdal Jerusalem on Saturday.

Dunigan's agent, Mike Naiditch, told ESPN.com's Andy Katz that he has known Dunigan since high school, but did not give money to Dunigan and only entered into a professional relationship with the player recently after the Italy trip was called off.

But Oregon says it obtained information about basketball players with eligibility questions and contacted the Pac-10 about the issue Aug. 2.

It's a question of timing here. Did Dunigan first lose his amateurism when he signed with an agent last Sunday when the agent said he did? Or did Dunigan accept extra benefits before signing with Naiditch, with an investigation into the possibility necessitating a move to turn pro anyway?

If Dunigan did become ineligible, did it come during his playing days or the period during which the program conducted a long coaching search without the leadership of a full-time athletic director?

These are messy questions that will have to be sorted out, and until then, it's Altman -- of no fault of his own -- who will have this hanging over him.

The Ducks are down to nine scholarship players, and while Dunigan never quite lived up to his McDonald's All-American billing, he was a starter who averaged 9 points a game and could rebound.

Any sanctions that might come out of the investigation would only further set back Altman's rebuilding project, and not that this wasn't known before, but there's a lot of work to be done.

When the most positive thing about your program in the offseason has to do with the gigantic, face-melting, Jerry Jones-would-be-proud scoreboard you're installing in your new basketball arena, you're probably not having a very good offseason. I'm talking, of course, about the Oregon Ducks.

This weekend brought even more bad news. According to a report from the Yediot Ahronot newspaper in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oregon just lost its fifth player since former coach Ernie Kent was fired in March. That player is Oregon center Michael Dunigan, who averaged 9.0 points, 4.9 rebounds and a team-leading 1.3 blocks in 20.3 minutes per game as a sophomore in 2009-10. According to Yediot Ahronot, Dunigan is expected to sign a three-year professional contract with an Israeli team, which would end his college hoops career.

Since Kent's firing, the bad news has just kept on coming. Oregon took forever with its ambitious coaching search. The school set its sights on some of college coaching's premier names, only to be rebuffed time and again; Brad Stevens and Tom Izzo were the search's two loftiest names, and neither one showed any public interest in the job. Then, after a month of fruitlessness, the Ducks settled on Creighton coach Dana Altman, a solid hire with a very good résumé who no doubt fell short of the program's original search-related expectations.

In the meantime, four players transferred out of Oregon. Drew Wiley went to Boise State. Josh Crittle transferred to Central Florida. Matt Humphrey ended up at Boston College and Jamil Wilson landed at Marquette. Point guard Malcolm Armstead also thought of transferring but eventually decided to stay in Eugene.

In all, the transfers mean Altman will begin his tenure with a decidedly decimated roster. Even if none of the departed players (including Dunigan, who was a highly rated but ultimately disappointing prospect) were going to revitalize Oregon immediately, having a bare cupboard after a 16-16 season -- including a 7-11 mark in a soft conference slate -- is, like, not good. In other words, that new scoreboard better be as distracting as it sounds.