COLUMBUS - A former Ohio State player at the center of an NCAA investigation into the basketball program is preparing to get married and won't discuss specifics of the probe.

''I can't say anything, other than don't believe everything you read and hear,'' Boban Savovic said Saturday when approached by reporters from The Columbus Dispatch outside Buschur's Market in his fiancee's western Ohio hometown of Russia.

Savovic wouldn't discuss any of the allegations made in a civil lawsuit filed by Kathleen Salyers. She contends two former Ohio State boosters whom she worked for as a baby sitter and housekeeper reneged on an agreement to pay her $1,000 a month plus expenses to care for Savovic.

Salyers claims that then-assistant coach Paul Biancardi knew of the living arrangement and directed her to ask professors to change grades for Savovic, who played on the Buckeyes' 1998-99 Final Four team.

Biancardi, now the head coach at Wright State, has denied the allegations. Jim Zeszutek, an attorney for former Buckeyes head coach Jim O'Brien and Biancardi, has disputed Salyers' allegations.

Salyers' lawsuit contributed to O'Brien's firing and an NCAA investigation of the basketball program. Ohio State fired O'Brien on June 8 after he admitted giving a recruit $6,000 in 1999.

Savovic wouldn't comment on allegations that people did homework for him and professors changed grades so he could remain eligible to play. He also wouldn't say if O'Brien or Biancardi broke NCAA rules.

Savovic will marry Cameo Francis, an art major he met at Ohio State, in three weeks.

Francis' father, who lives in Russia, a Shelby County town of about 450 80 miles northwest of Columbus, said he knows little of Savovic's involvement with Salyers.

''All I can tell you is that he's a good kid,'' Bill Francis said.