Losses should add up to gain.(makeup of Fresno State University basketball team)(Brief Article)

The program is fresh out of high-maintenance players. No Winfied Walton. No Courtney Alexander. No Kenny Brunner or Avondre Jones or Chris Herren. And, officially, no more Tito Maddox. An era has passed at Fresno State.

Some of these guys played well in their time with the Bulldogs. Some did not. Brunner, for all the negative publicity he brought upon the school, never played. Those who did suit up had something in common: They played at Fresno State, but too often they played for themselves.

"I tried to talk our guys into playing hard," coach Jerry Tarkanian says, "and it didn't work."

The pride missing during his first five years, as Tarkanian attempted to revive the program by overstuffing it with individual talent, began to emerge last season. The change was apparent as center Melvin Ely and small forward Chris Jefferies became prominent players. It wasn't unanimous, though, not as long as Maddox concentrated more on his NBA draft status than the Bulldogs' success.

That no longer is a concern.

Maddox, a 6-4 sophomore who was among the NCAA's most gifted point guards, was removed from the program last week for accepting benefits from an agent while on the NBA's early-entry list. It was his second such offense. That left the point-guard position to junior college recruit Chris Sandy. Tarkanian will notice a difference in the level of talent, but also the level of cooperation.

"He's going to do everything he can to do what Coach Tark wants," says Doc Sadler, Sandy's coach at Westark Community College in Fort Smith, Ark. "Chris is about winning basketball games. He's going to put his individual goals second to the team goals. He will be as hard a worker as they've got."