The NCAA announced today that it would uphold penalties imposed last May against a former head coach of men’s basketball at California State University at Fresno.

Last year the Division I Infractions Committee found that Ray Lopes, a former Fresno State coach, and members of his staff had made 457 impermissible telephone calls to recruits in 2002 and 2003. The violations led the committee to put Fresno State on probation for four years.

The committee also levied a three-year show-cause penalty on the coach, who had previously made impermissible recruiting calls while he was an assistant coach at the University of Oklahoma. The show-cause penalty means that, should the coach seek another job in college sports before March 16, 2008, he and the hiring institution would have to appear before the committee to determine whether his duties should be limited.

In his appeal, Mr. Lopes asserted that the penalties were excessive and inappropriate. The committee disagreed, saying that the number of recruiting violations and the coach’s pattern of improper behavior warranted the penalties.