Got busted embezzling money, or something along those lines, and was kicked out of school. That left Jeff Campbell (my roommates and I used to call him "the accountant," LOL because he looked 40-years old) and a bunch of freshman to fend for themselves in a pretty decent WAC conference at the time for basketball. (For example, this was during the Majerus era when Yewtah started to separate from us and were in the NC game just a couple of years later while we had to completely rebuild).
Needless to say, the loss of Ruffner and some other gaping recruiting holes by Reid sealed the deal. Rooted hard for those guys, just too many freshman collectively, and not enough experience. Some of them became really good players in later seasons.
GO COUGS.