Feb. 12, 2006

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - Missouri completed its settlement Sunday with basketball coach Quin Snyder, who resigned two days earlier with seven games left in the season.

Terms will be announced this week, athletic director Mike Alden said. He called the move "in the best interests of all parties." Assistant Melvin Watkins, a former head coach at Charlotte and Texas A&M, will coach Missouri for the rest of the season.

The settlement came before Sunday's home game against Kansas State, which was to include a halftime celebration honoring 100 years of Missouri basketball and the program's greatest players.

In a news conference after a meeting with curators and university system president Elson Floyd, Alden denied reports that on Thursday he dispatched broadcaster Gary Link to tell Snyder he would be fired after the season. Link is also Alden's special assistant.

"I wouldn't term it all as a directive," said Alden, who acknowledged that Link spoke with Snyder Thursday night. "He just talked to him to kind of gauge how things are going."

One day before resigning, Snyder pledged to stick out a difficult season in which Missouri (10-11, 3-7 in the Big 12) had lost its last six games by an average of 18 points.

Snyder leaves Missouri with a career mark of 126-91 in seven seasons and two years remaining on his contract. His base salary is $195,000, though the total tops $1 million with shoe and television contracts and incentives.

The 39-year-old Snyder played for Duke on three Final Four teams. As an assistant to coach Mike Krzyzewski, he helped lead the Blue Devils to two more Final Fours. He was hired at Missouri after the retirement of longtime coach Norm Stewart.

Snyder's teams reached the NCAA tournament in his first four seasons, including an appearance in the quarterfinals in 2002. But the program is 42-42 since and attendance has plummeted to an average of 8,252, despite a new arena that opened last season.

In 2004, Missouri was placed on NCAA probation for three years after more than a year of scrutiny on activities surrounding former point guard Ricky Clemons. The school avoided a ban from postseason play but was prohibited from off-campus recruiting for one year.