Unfortunately for people interested in details about how Ray Lopes ran the Fresno State men's basketball program, Elizabeth Egan is more of a get-along bureaucrat than a speak-truth-to-power crusader.

Egan's office did the people's work quickly and proficiently in convicting former Fresno State basketball star Terry Pettis of murder.

But a district attorney with a broader view of her power and responsibilities would've pulled back the curtain to reveal how low the school went in pursuit of basketball glory.

Instead, Fresno State was spared the embarrassment of Lopes being grilled under oath by prosecutor Jon Skiles about Lopes' initial actions after Pettis killed Rene Shannon Abbott in a drug deal.

Thus we still don't know whether Lopes helped detectives (his version) or failed to cooperate with them (Police Chief Jerry Dyer's version).

Why is this important?

Because anyone hiring Lopes should know whether he willingly hindered a murder investigation to protect his job and reputation.

Fresno State also was spared the humiliation of Jonathan Woods' presence in court. According to trial testimony, the former Bulldogs basketball player arranged a marijuana purchase for someone else that ultimately led to the shooting.

I would have loved to see Skiles ask Woods about his final season, in which he was suspended three times before the school finally showed him the door. Sample questions: What was your typical day like? How many drug tests did you flunk? How often did you skip class?

An ambitious district attorney would have used this case to punish Fresno State for forgetting its mission and valuing athletics more than academics.

An ambitious district attorney would have illuminated the folly of trying to clean up Jerry Tarkanian's mess with a first-time head coach.

An ambitious district attorney would have fully exposed Fresno State's slide into slime in the hope it would send winning-is-the-only-thing boosters back into their holes, never to be seen again.

The reality is there are two Fresno States.

The good Fresno State is captured in the university's spring magazine headlined "Masterpiece of creativity."

There you might read about Fresno State's work on a steam technology that could increase production of hard-to-extract heavy oil and decrease air pollution.

Or about a creative writing program that is to poetry and short stories what Duke is to men's basketball.

Or about 39 Fresno State students who spent two weeks during winter break helping Hurricane Katrina victims in Slidell, La.

Or about Justin Costa, a former bartender and college dropout who found his calling at Fresno State in molecular biology and is headed to Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

The bad Fresno State embarrasses us all.

It's the one the nation was exposed to again with a wire story that began: "Former Fresno State basketball player Terry Pettis was convicted Friday of murdering a teenage woman in a botched drug robbery."