Two NCAA investigators and a Pac-10 investigator were in eastern Washington on Monday and will remain in the area Tuesday to discuss whether the University of Washington committed recruiting violations over the past four months after allegations were raised by three other Division I coaching staffs in the state, ESPN.com has learned.

Coaches at Gonzaga, Eastern Washington and Washington State confirmed last weekend that the NCAA would be on campus to talk about Washington and the Huskies' recruitment of nearby Clarkston High's 6-foot-10 rising junior center Josh Heytfelt, as well as a few other potential illegal contacts regarding players in the state. Heytfelt told ESPN.com Sunday that the NCAA also would make a house call to discuss a potential rules violation.

Washington athletics director Barbara Hedges and coach Lorenzo Romar, hired in April from Saint Louis, held a news conference Monday in Seattle to respond to the allegations raised in the ESPN.com story posted Sunday.

"First, I will simply tell you that when I hired Lorenzo Romar and I talked to people across the country about Lorenzo, I couldn't find a person that would say an unpleasant word about him. The words that were used were 'honest', a 'person of high integrity' and a 'person that is absolutely a straight arrow and a straight shooter.' That certainly has not changed. That is who Lorenzo Romar is,'' Hedges said at the news conference.

"Secondly, let me tell you that we have not heard, at the University of Washington, from the Pac-10 or the NCAA. We have not been notified about anything,'' Hedges said. "What I have read in the paper (in Monday's Seattle Times) is virtually all I know. Typically in the Pac-10, as you know, we work with the Pac-10 -- we don't go directly to the NCAA. If we have a self-report we go directly to the Pac-10 office.''

Hedges said she would self-report any violations if there were any found. Hedges said she was dismayed by the way the allegations surfaced and said protocol should have been for the coach or athletics director to call the other coach and say, 'Coach, this is what I think is going on and then the AD calls the other AD to follow up on it.' If there were violations then they would notify the NCAA and file a report.

"It's really important to understand this. For us to pick up the paper, or hear this on ESPN.com without having any institution notify the University of Washington, it's pretty shocking,'' Hedges said. "I'm not going to discuss the allegations individually because I think that's inappropriate. But I simply want you all to understand what I believe the process should be and in this particular case it has not occurred."

Romar said he can handle being criticized for not calling a timeout but, "when your integrity is questioned, that's something that really bothers me. All I can say is that I'm anxious to tell our side of the story that I won't do right now. We're going to allow the process to take care of everything at this point. When everything has been looked into and everyone has had their respective conversations with the proper people then I'll comment further. I'm really anxious to tell our side of the story."

Romar, who replaced the fired Bob Bender, was aware of the allegations but wouldn't comment on the specifics. "This is unbelievable,'' Romar said Sunday of the allegations by opposing coaches. Romar said he was unaware the NCAA and the other coaching staffs had been in contact with each other but he welcomed the NCAA to the state to hear his side of the story. "I would pick them up and take them where they need to go,'' said Romar, although he obviously won't be in Spokane to greet the NCAA team.

The NCAA doesn't comment on ongoing investigations or on whether it is officially investigating a school or player.

Heytfelt told ESPN.com that Washington assistant Cameron Dollar was in Clarkston last week when he was working out, but Heytfelt declined to say whether Dollar watched him work out. Heytfelt said he would have no further comment.

The month of August is a quiet period, which means coaches cannot evaluate prospects but can initiate a phone call to the prospect once a week. Prospects can call coaches as many times as they want in a week. Recruits can make unofficial campus visits during August. But watching a player work out during a quiet period is a violation that could range from a warning to preventing the school from signing that player.

The other allegation in question was a phone call to the house of rising junior forward David Pendergraft of Brewster, Wash., who had already committed to Gonzaga. Pendergraft's father, Mike, told ESPN.com that Dollar called in August to see why mail was getting sent back to Washington. Calling a rising junior is prohibited under NCAA rules. Juniors can't receive phone calls from a school until March of their junior year.

"I was asleep when I got the call from Cameron Dollar,'' Mike Pendergraft said. "He knew David had committed to Gonzaga but he was just feeling me out to see how committed we were. I'm not sure why he called.''

Robert Lowden, coach of the Gary Payton Pinnacle All Stars Elite in Seattle, said over the weekend that the NCAA -- which had been tipped off that Washington allegedly had viewed practices during the June quiet period -- had called and left a message for him but that he hadn't returned the call. At that time, Lowden told ESPN.com that he hadn't yet spoken to the NCAA, but there were several schools, including Washington, that attended practices during quiet periods "viewing us when they shouldn't have been.''

On Tuesday, Lowden told ESPN.com that he never received a message from the NCAA, and that his team "never practiced in the month of June" and the Washington coaches "never watched practice during the quiet period in April or May, either."

"We didn't practice in the month of June," Lowden said Tuesday. "If I screwed up, giving you the wrong dates, then that's my mistake."

The fourth allegation involves 2004 top-10 player Marvin Williams of Bremerton, Wash. North Carolina assistant Doug Wojcik and Gonzaga assistant Billy Grier were at an open-gym workout with Dollar watching the 6-foot-8 Williams on July 31 when Dollar allegedly spent 45 minutes talking to Williams' mother, which isn't allowed. Sources said both staffs would be willing to tell the NCAA that they witnessed the Dollar-Williams conversation. Marvin Williams told ESPN.com that he doesn't remember his mother being in the gym. "I remember the open gym, but not her being there,'' Williams said. Attempts to reach Williams' mother were unsuccessful.

Coaches from Gonzaga, Washington State, Eastern Washington and North Carolina weren't thrilled with Washington. Sources told ESPN.com that Washington State's Paul Graham and Eastern Washington's Ray Giacoletti expressed their dismay with Romar.

Arizona State's Rob Evans tried to act as a peacemaker on the issue, trying to bring together Romar and Graham to discuss the allegations. Evans, who is friends with both coaches, said he has no problems with Romar and isn't involved in making the allegations.

One head coach told ESPN.com that he was deeply concerned about the advantages Washington was getting over the summer by its alleged extra contacts. The state's coaches were going to express to the NCAA that something had to be done or they would also feel like they should receive extra contacts with area players. They also wanted Washington to be prohibited from signing players in question.

Romar is one of the most respected coaches in the game, earning one of the five coaching spots on the Basketball Issues Committee a few years ago with Oregon's Ernie Kent, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, San Francisco's Phil Mathews and Kentucky's Tubby Smith. Dollar was a former player at UCLA when Romar was an assistant. Romar went on to coach at Pepperdine before Saint Louis, where he hired Dollar before getting the job at Washington -- his alma mater.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.