2014-15 NCAA Basketball Thread

yeah, the NCAA'll give em the pat on the wrist probably. can't hurt your cash cow. it won't really prove anything other than the NCAA is crooked and biased, which we all know anyway

 

UNC releases Notice of Allegations.

UNC was hit with a charge of lack of institutional control along with four Level 1 violations. The time frame cited runs from the fall of 2002 through the summer of 2011.

http://3qh929iorux3fdpl532k03kg.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/NCAA-NOA.pdf

1. Academic counselors provided impermissible benefits to athletes in African and Afro-American Studies courses from 2002-2011 and allowed 10 student-athletes to exceed independent study credit limits.
2. Academic counselor Jan Boxill provided extra benefits by way of impermissible academic assistance and special arrangements to women's basketball players from 2007-2010.
3. Student services manager Deborah Crowder violated the NCAA principles of ethical conduct in failing to cooperate with the NCAA enforcement staff's requests during this investigation.
4. Professor and chair of the African and Afro-American Studies department Dr. Julius Nyang'oro violated the NCAA principles of ethical conduct in failing to cooperate with the NCAA enforcement staff's requests during this investigation.
5. Allegation Nos. 1 and 2 violated the NCAA principles of institutional control and rules compliance in failing to monitor Boxill and violated lack of institutional control in impermissible benefits provided by the African and Afro-American Studies (AFRI/AFAM) department.

This was in Allegation 4 and was interesting:

Specifically, individuals in the academic administration on campus, particularly in the college of arts and sciences, did not sufficiently monitor the AFRI/AFAM and ASPSA departments or provide appropriate supervision for these academic units and their staffs. The AFRI/AFAM department created anomalous courses that NOTICE OF ALLEGATIONS Case No. 00231 May 20, 2015 Page No. 49 __________ went unchecked for 18 years. , parThis allowed individuals within ASPSA to use these courses through special arrangements to maintain the eligibility of academically at-risk student-athletes particularly in the sports of football, men's basketball and women's basketball. Although the general student body also had access to the anomalous AFRI/AFAM courses, student-athletes received preferential access to these anomalous courses, enrolled in these anomalous courses at a disproportionate rate to that of the general student body and received other impermissible benefits not available to the general student body in connection with these courses.

_

 

Meanwhile the North Carolina News & Observer had these thoughts:

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article22823382.html

What UNC must do: Fire Williams, remove banners, forfeit wins

More important than whatever action the NCAA takes against the University of North Carolina for what is perhaps the worst athletics-academic scandal in collegiate history is what the UNC administration will do to reel in its corrupt athletic department and its aiders and abettors.

The NCAA is between a rock and a hard place because it badly needs North Carolina athletics to be vibrant and healthy. A few years of severe sanctions against UNC means a potentially huge revenue loss for the NCAA, from both television rights and post-season play. Before these revelations of extreme cheating, Carolina had a squeaky-clean reputation, due in large part to the integrity of late basketball coach Dean Smith. That’s all over now. The UNC athletic department will likely never again enjoy such a lofty status in collegiate sports.

On the other hand, UNC, as the state’s flagship institution of higher learning, should see the reputation of its university and the integrity of its academics as pre-eminent and thus institute dramatic and historic reforms. Up until now, the UNC administration has maintained a laissez-faire attitude toward the athletic department. “Trust us,” was their cry. “We pay our own way, and we follow the rules.” This relationship provided the athletic department reckless freedom to self-destruct.

Once I told former UNC athletic director John Swofford I wanted to write a story that, in part, looked into athletic department finances. Swofford placed his hand on my shoulder and said: “Now, Patrick, why would you want to write about a thing like that?”

So went my journey at The Chapel Hill Newspaper as I reported on stories that looked into how the UNC athletics department spent its money. Despite North Carolina’s status as a state-funded public institution, getting financial information from the athletic department was never easy. Then-UNC attorney, Susan H. Ehringhaus, would usually help the AD’s office erect road blocks, and it often required the help of N.C. Press Association lawyers to get UNC to provide the information to which the newspaper and the public were entitled.

Now that UNC’s house of cards has crumbled, damage control has been carried out, but with all the wrong emphases. The messengers have been killed (Rashad McCants and Mary Willingham), the news media have been bashed, basketball coach Roy Williams has been “dumbfounded.” Swofford recalls nothing. Some sacrificial lambs have moved on (Dick Baddour and Jan Boxill). And Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge are gone.
Now what? As much as it will hurt in the short term, UNC has to give Williams his walking papers. Williams, who likes to flippantly refer to the scandal as all that “junk going on,” is a big part of the problem. Despite his status as the state’s highest-paid employee, Williams did not do his job. At best, he is an incompetent administrator who failed to maintain control over the handful of athletes he was supposed to monitor. At worst, he knew all about the cheating and took a see-no-evil-Joe-Paterno approach, hoping his immorality would go undiscovered.

UNC should also take down Williams’ now-tainted 2005 and 2009 NCAA Championship banners from the Smith Center rafters. These titles were won by cheating, plain and simple. Carolina must own up to its ill-gotten titles and voluntarily disown them. Additionally, all UNC victories for any years in which ineligible players were used should be vacated. Williams – and UNC basketball – should have those wins wiped from records. The Carolina football program, and any other nonrevenue teams that used ineligible players, should face the same fate.

The UNC administration must implement a two-tiered system of control over its athletic department, meaning its athletic director must answer to a dean whose job will be to maintain a hands-on, day-to-day connection between the “real” university and athletics. UNC should also implement a dual system of economic regulation in which the athletic department does not maintain unfettered control of its finances. It’s time to implement a system of checks and balances between the university and its wayward athletics department.

It’s time for honest leadership to prevail in Chapel Hill. The time of reckoning has come for UNC athletics, and the NCAA may not be the agency to provide the incentive that leads Carolina back on the road to integrity. The university must take steps to steady the ship and steer it back to the “Carolina Way.”

Patrick O’Neill of Garner is a former sports and news reporter with The Chapel Hill News, formerly known as The Chapel Hill Newspaper.


Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article22823382.html#storylink=cpy
_

 

Sucks for people that care about UNC I guess

 

Wait... I thought these were just baseless allegations and the basketball team did nothing wrong? It was just a witch hunt. Carolina is just as bad as the Patriots but I'm sure a few athletes taking fakes classes didn't have any effect on the wins and losses so it's not really a big deal that they cheated.

 

You guys, I'm worried that junc is dead.

 

LOL at the NCAA only going back to 2002 when the Wainstein Report noted course irregularities, starting with men's bb players, back to 1993.

BTW, wonder why UNC would start taking shortcuts after 1991-2?

 

If I was an alum I'd be embarrassed.

Personally I'd rather see schools paying players with cars, etc.. than schools setting up entire academic programs designed to falsify academics.

 

Lol this is so awesome. Of course junc will never admit he is wrong but that's part of the fun

 

In 2010 the Final Four was held in Indianapolis and the journalists at the Indianapolis Star decided to research & write an article about NCAA Basketball and graduation rates "They Got Game, But Do NCAA Players Graduate?"
http://www.indystar.com/article/20100402/SPORTS0609/4020331/They-got-game-do-NCAA-players-graduate-

It was a pretty interesting article then. But it takes on a whole new meaning now that we've established: "UNC violated a lack of institutional control in impermissible benefits provided by the African and Afro-American Studies (AFRI/AFAM) department" according to the notice of allegations. http://3qh929iorux3fdpl532k03kg.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/NCAA-NOA.pdf

Tucked away in the article is this:

---------------------------------------------------------
That's my major, too
North Carolina, which has the most Final Four appearances and players during the time measured, had the fourth-highest graduation rate of its Final Four players -- 79 percent.

But the university's graduates -- and most notably its 2005 NCAA championship team -- raise questions about "clustering."

Simply put, clustering is when a high percentage of teammates receive the same degree. Among North Carolina's graduates, communications and Afro-American and African studies stand out as the majors of choice.

From the 2005 team, all seven Tar Heels who graduated had the same major -- Afro-American and African studies.

That includes Sean May of the Sacramento Kings, the Bloomington prep star and son of former IU star Scott May. Sean May entered the NBA after three years in college, capped by an NCAA title in 2005. He graduated last summer.

May said he started as a double major with communications, but dropped it so he could graduate faster after leaving for the NBA.

Afro-American and African studies, May said, offered "more independent electives, independent study. I could take a lot of classes during the season. Communications, I had to be there in the actual classroom. We just made sure all the classes I had to take, I could take during the summer."

Otto, the head of the Drake Group, said her concern with clustering is that it raises questions about whether athletes are being directed to a path of least academic resistance.

"I'm fascinated at the longevity of North Carolina's clustering," Otto said. "It's unbelievable." Lennon of the NCAA declined to comment, saying it's a campus issue.

John Blanchard, senior associate athletic director at North Carolina, said it's reasonable that people in a peer group might gravitate to the same major. He said clustering "just doesn't bother us here."

"The question is whether they are getting a good education," he said, "and the answer is a resounding yes."

 

Well, the problem is, some UNC superfans relied on a naive summary of the Wainstein Whitewash (a school funded defense of the program and not an independent "investigation") to make themselves feel better and never actually READ the report as some UNC superfans have accused others. If you read the report as I did, you'd understand that it never "cleared" UNC basketball or Roy Williams from fault (as some UNC superfans allege), it just never dug deep enough to get to the truth. When you read the report, it's clear they never intended to implicate the basketball team.

Which ultimately may help the basketball program skate, but it's clear how deep the cheating and corruption was.
Btw, the Wainstein Whitewash was done by Cadwalader--an ancient white shoe bond indenture and corporate finance law firm, not an investigatory firm or criminal defense firm. 20 years of cheating resulted in a 131 page report. Ted Wells' report on a few deflated footballs was 243 pages.

Here, on page 72 are the facts (no "research" needed even though it was widely reported accurately by many news organizations):

During the Dean Smith era (1961-1997), there were 54 basketball player enrollments in AFAM independent studies. In the three years of Coach Bill Guthridge’s tenure (1997-2000), there were 17 basketball enrollments in paper classes. There were 42 enrollments in paper classes under Coach Matt Doherty (2000-2003) and 167 under Coach Roy Williams (2003-present).

It's clear from the report that that the African study classes were paper classes requiring little or no work and were generally not graded.

From Page 20:

As explained above, students and student-athletes effectively needed only to submit a paper of a certain length in order to earn a high grade in the paper classes. While some took the paper classes seriously and worked conscientiously to produce a thoughtful paper that deserved a strong grade, others did not. There were instances in which students and student-athletes prepared papers that were largely “cut and paste” jobs that simply copied text from publicly-available sources. Knowing that Crowder graded the papers and that she gave them only a light skim before assigning a grade, many paper class students and student-athletes would submit a paper with quality text in the introduction and conclusion and nothing but “fluff” or largely unoriginal material in between. Some student-athletes also took advantage of overly helpful tutors who would write parts of their papers for them. In every tutor-student relationship, there is a fine line between the appropriate and inappropriate level of assistance the tutor can provide in the paper drafting process. While gentle suggestions as to topics or text for the student to consider would generally be appropriate, feeding the student with paragraphs of completed text would not.

Yet, some UNC superfans naively want to believe that it was only all the other sports and not their hallowed basketball program . Except for this:

Page 73-75

As discussed above (see Section V.A.5.a), former Tar Heel player Rashad McCants has given an account that is at odds with the coaches’ claims. McCants publicly announced that he took a number of paper classes during his three years at Chapel Hill, including four during the 2005 championship season, and that tutors wrote his papers for him. He alleges that these classes were designed specifically to keep him and other athletes eligible, and he claims that Coach Williams was “100% aware of the ‘paper class system.’”139 In fact, he describes a conversation in which Williams allegedly told McCants that he had eligibility issues but that Williams would “swap” a class to prevent any problem.140 The allegation that Coach Williams was “100% aware of the ‘paper class system’” finds some support in the recent public allegation by former learning specialist Mary Willingham that she once had a conversation with Williams, in which Williams said that her job was to keep his players eligible. It is important to note that Willingham said nothing about this alleged encounter with Coach Williams either in her initial public statements about the paper classes or in our interview with her. We undertook to test the veracity of these two allegations. We first tried to talk with McCants about his public statements, but, as explained above, he refused multiple requests for an interview. We also tried to re-interview Willingham about her supplemental allegation about Coach Williams, but her attorney in her civil lawsuit against the University did not grant us permission.

Mccants never spoke to Wainstein, was NEVER discredited by Wainstein as some UNC superfans allege--he never spoke to him. But McCants transcripts speak for themselves--straight A's in African Studies classes that he says he never took.

Wainstein never pressed the issue, but instead took Williams defense at face value. Because Williams was "emphatic" and "couldn't fathom" what swapping out classes means. Laughable.

Page 73-74--Finally, we spoke with Coach Williams about these two allegations, and he was emphatic that both are false. As for McCants’ allegations, he acknowledged knowing that McCants was taking several AFAM classes in his last semester and talking with McCants to make sure he took his last semester seriously and got passing grades. He denies ever saying anything about “swapping” classes for McCants, and cannot even fathom what that means.

Willingham, the woman who brought the whole scheme to light and was subsequently destroyed by the University, was also never interviewed by Wainstein, so she could not be discredited, but Wainstein still accepted William's laughable deflection:

Page 74-- As for Willingham’s allegation that Williams said that her job was to keep players eligible, Coach Williams flatly denies it for two reasons. First, to his knowledge, he believes he has never spoken to Mary Willingham. Second, even if he had spoken to her, he would never make that statement, as it is directly contrary to the belief that he constantly preaches that their number one responsibility as coaches and counselors is to make sure their players get a good education.

Read that again. Williams said he believes "he never spoke spoke to her", but even if he had, would NEVER had said that. What a lawerly and weak defense by Williams.

Neither McCants or Willingham were ever discredited or proven wrong as some UNC superfans would have you believe.

Page 74:

We undertook to test the veracity of these two allegations. We first tried to talk with McCants about his public statements, but, as explained above, he refused multiple requests for an interview. We also tried to re-interview Willingham about her supplemental allegation about Coach Williams, but her attorney in her civil lawsuit against the University did not grant us permission.

Some UNC superfans will allege that the basketball program had no knowledge of the improprieties, or that it was all women's basketball grades by Crowder.

Page 64 of the Wainstein Whitewash:

Basketball counselor Wayne Walden acknowledged knowing how the classes worked, including that Crowder did at least some of the grading.

Finally, some UNC superfans would have you believe that basketball players never took paper classes or if they did, they "worked hard" . In fact they will point to emphatic denials by UNC basketball coaches who deny the allegations, and the Wainstein Whitewash naively suggests that JUST the football players had the paperless classes, but that the basketball players really worked hard--a laughable claim.

Page 48

Moreover, unlike the football players who largely conceded that these classes held little educational value, several of the basketball players insisted that they read extensively and worked hard to produce their papers for these classes.

This is what is colloquially know as "a crock of shit".

It's all in the Wainstein Whitewash if you take off your light blue glasses and stop taking naivete pills. Everything I quoted is directly out of the report.

The basketball program may ultimately skate, but it is dirty and has been so for decades.

_

 

So it appears that intentional ignorance and plausible deniability will be what saves UNC basketball. The Carolina Way is basically a bunch of doddering old clueless fools who had no idea how these illiterate basketball players were maintaining a high enough GPAs to maintain their eligibility.

Hard to "fathom" that this massive decades long scheme of cheating was devised by academic advisors trying to keep women basketball players eligible.

Because that's what everyone thinks of when they think the University of North Carolina--women's basketball.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...ons-responses-and-a-timeline-on-whats-to-come

UNC scandal: Allegations, responses and a timeline on what's to come

The University of North Carolina revealed on Thursday the NCAA's Notice of Allegations (NOA) against the school. It's a big public step forward in what has become the most notorious academic fraud case in the history of the NCAA. There are five allegations, four of them of the harshest order: Level I.

The 59-page Notice of Allegations is embedded at the bottom of this story.

Labeling North Carolina's era-spanning academic impropriety as a Level I "Severe Breach of Conduct," the NCAA's report references 18 years of "unchecked" coursework in the African and Afro-American (AFAM) Studies department at the crux of its investigation.

Officially, though, the NCAA's allegations date back to 2002 and go through 2011. That 18-year mark is a reference to the groundbreaking Wainstrein Report, which was released in 2014 and somewhat in coordination with the NCAA's decision to re-open its case against UNC last June.

The UNC case is a broad one, tough to interpret and now, somehow, even tougher to predict an outcome on. What we didn't see much of in the NOA: Sweeping, harsh, definitive allegations against current or former staff members with the UNC football or men's basketball team, the two high-profile programs who've had athletes go on the record in the past and claim they were aided in cheating in order to attain better grades.

Instead, the NOA looks at the academic side, the advisers who helped steer athletes and created a lack of institutional control. Here's the essentials of what you need to know, the timeline still to come and what we're still waiting to have cleared up.

1. The big aspect of this re-opened investigation was for the NCAA to link academic advantages to student-athletes. The AFAM's courses were available to everyone -- but now we see through the NCAA's investigation that players were specifically given advantages to gaining entry into those classes, essentially helping their chances of keeping their grades good and remaining eligible to play.

That's the biggie, and it's why the NCAA nailed UNC with a lack-of-institutional-control allegation. The NCAA alleges that from the fall of 2002 through the spring of 2011, academic counselors "leveraged their relationships" with UNC faculty to benefit athletes. This nefarious behavior stemmed from the African and Afro-American Studies department.

In short: the NCAA accuses UNC of enabling its AFAM department as being an easy way to stopgap poor academic performance and/or keep athletes eligible to play through the guise of phony lecture courses and paper classes that required no attendance and/or work.

2. The information supplied by the NCAA is undeniable, wide-ranging and almost entirely on UNC's academic advisers and counselors -- not the players or the coaches. The NCAA supplied 252 emails and/or correspondence spanning a number of sports in support of its first allegation alone. In total, its "exhibits" portion of the NOA details 732 pages and 325 exhibits/emails/correspondence that build its case.

The surprising part: men's hoops (27 references) and football (33) are not the primary targets. Women's basketball is the biggest violator. And Roy Williams is mentioned just once, in reference to an interview he gave to the NCAA. Williams has maintained his ignorance to this issue throughout.

3. The name we know now for sure that wasn't prominently discussed before: Jan Boxill. She was the chair of the faculty for UNC's Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes (ASPSA). She also was the director for the school's Parr Center for Ethics. And she's at the center of the women's basketball allegations, which take up most of the NOA and certainly indicate that women's hoops, not football or men's basketball, will be subject to the worst of the punishments down the road. (The soccer and baseball teams are also mentioned in the report.)

Boxill's role became clear when the Wainstein Report came out, but the NCAA makes no mistake that it's her inclusion and emails that paint the ugliest and perhaps dirtiest parts of the scandal.

"The AFRI/AFAM department created anomalous courses that went unchecked for 18 years," the NCAA's report states. "This allowed individuals within ASPSA to use these courses through special arrangements to maintain the eligibility of academically at-risk student-athletes, particularly in the sports of football, men's basketball and women's basketball.

"Although the general student body also had access to the anomalous AFRI/AFAM courses, student-athletes received preferential access to these anomalous courses, enrolled in these anomalous courses at a disproportionate rate to that of the general student body and received other impermissible benefits not available to the general student body in connection with these courses."

Julius Nyang'oro, the former chief of the AFAM and his former student services manager, Deborah Crowder, both refused (eight times between them) to meet and interview with the NCAA and UNC. These refusals boosted the NCAA's case against UNC in light of compounding evidence against Nyang'oro and Crowder, the two most notorious names with the case.

4. Know that, while this is a big headline in the here and now, this process really still has a long way to go. A case of this magnitude, which details fraud in many ways and in many departments, is tough to sift out in terms of punishment. So here's the timeline going forward:

-- UNC has a 90-day window from May 22, meaning it has until Aug. 20 (unless the university files for an extension, which is uncommon) to formally respond to the NCAA's allegations. It can opt to dispute any, or none, of them. UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham said on a conference call Thursday afternoon he expects the school to file its response in August.

-- After UNC's response is received by the NCAA, the NCAA's enforcement staff will have 60 days to hold a "prehearing conference" with UNC and determine if any more violations need to be considered before moving to the next stage.

-- From there, the case moves on to the infractions-hearing portion, perhaps the most vital part, because it's the only time the NCAA and members from the University of North Carolina will meet face to face to discuss and debate the allegations -- behind closed doors.

5. In terms of punishment, it's a total guessing game at this point. The lack of mentions for men's basketball and football is certainly surprising. Remember, there is a new penalty structure, voted into effect by the NCAA last year, but in this case, it will not be applied. UNC will basically be given the better of two fates -- whenever everything has been finally hashed out, debated to death, and settled.

The timeline on that? It's still undetermined. The NOA's lack of mentions, specifically, for men's basketball and football don't absolve those programs. No way. Again, we're talking about four major allegations of Level I violations. Still, this was the NCAA's formal submission to UNC, and for the most part it went on what it could -- and it was heavily on the side of the former counselors, staff and advisers.

So, as the case drags on, it's looking more likely that UNC's forthcoming season on the men's basketball court, which has hopes of a Final Four-caliber team, could be clouded -- but not affected -- by this case.

Cunningham said he told his coaches the school is about halfway done with this saga. Given that it first began four years ago, and then started once more nearly a year ago, that indicates we won't have a final ruling on which programs will be hit in what ways until next spring at the earliest.
_

 

It appears that the NCAA has a vested interest in not hammering UNC too hard.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo...-of-relief-from-unc-coming-out-of-chapel-hill

Why do I sense a sigh of relief from UNC coming out of Chapel Hill?

It's true. Maybe not all of it -- and maybe not the juiciest stuff -- but it's enough. North Carolina was running a degree mill -- or something close to it.

Thursday's damning Notice of Allegations from the NCAA was the least anticipated news at North Carolina since Michael Jordan's exit to the NBA.

In what was termed the largest academic fraud case in history, UNC was hit with five allegations of Severe Breach of Conduct. (That's the NCAA using capital letters to hammer home the point.)

Why, then, do I sense a sigh of relief coming from Chapel Hill?

Sure, it's a lot, but it isn't everything. For some, it certainly isn't enough. Seemingly safe is that 2005 national championship banner. Roy Williams, too. And maybe that's all anyone at North Carolina cares about.

The NCAA seemed to throw police tape around the scope of the wrongdoing -- 10 years instead of 18, as stated by the Ken Wainstein's thorough external report. The allegations also made little mention of Williams aside from a transcript of his interview.

No mention was made of what is essentially a growing conflict of interest. While the NCAA is prosecuting North Carolina, it is in court fighting former players suing it because of the scandal.

How is it possible for both of those things to be going on at once? The NCAA contends it isnot responsible for academic fraud at UNC. Can the association fairly investigate UNC for wrongdoing while being sued by those who allegedly were involved in it?

Part of the answer may be in the allegations themselves. For some reason, the wrongdoing is defined as "extra benefits," not outright academic impropriety. Semantically, at the least, the NCAA benefits.

It comes off as looking like the largest academic fraud case in history really isn't.

It would be terrible if these allegations turn out to be nothing more than a legal maneuver favoring the NCAA.

A reminder ...

• The NCAA struggles mightily with even defining academic fraud, much less having the stones to investigate it. The membership doesn't necessarily want the association telling it what courses it can offer and how to grade them. There is a faction of educators out there today who are cheering for UNC.

• The NCAA can throw all the APRs and grad rates they want at us. There's a difference between a degree and an education. That's why former women's basketball player Rashanda McCants and former football player Devon Ramsey filed their suit. In it, they allege an "inferior education."

The NCAA's response: Hey, don't blame us.

What was summarized Thursday was more akin to the old $100 handshake from a booster. A handshake/grade analogy is easier to define than widespread academic fraud.

Remember, the NCAA was basically shamed into coming back on this case a year ago after dropping it. The Wainstein report connected the dots to athletic interests.

Over an 18-year span, about half of the 3,100 students who took those paper classes were athletes. Across the country far and wide, a lot of us were asking, "How could the administration not know what was going on?"

"We were all keeping those kids in [those] classes," former UNC academic counselor Mary Willingham told CBSSports.com.

The allegations focus on just a few counselors. The most prominent, Debby Crowder -- an avowed Tar Heel fan -- is made to look like Jim Tressel. According to the NCAA, Crowder "failed to furnish information relevant to [the] investigation."

Tressel is the former Ohio State coach accused of misleading the NCAA in TattooGate.Despite being blackballed as a coach, Tressel is now Youngstown State's president.

Crowder, who retired in 2009, cooperated with Wainstein only when it became evident that criminal charges were coming.

Somewhere in there is a win for both parties.

"Until we get people under oath, we're not going to get people to tell the truth," Willingham said. "Even then, they might not tell the truth."

Call it, then, the Notice of Allegations from not-quite-hell. There's no juicy center for us to dig into. This coach knew this or this coach knew that. All the principals are either off the hook or out of a job.

What happens next? North Carolina will be hit hard even if a fraction of the allegations hold up before the infractions committee. But despite the NCAA's threatening language Thursday, remember the school will be subject to the old (more lenient) penalty structure.

More punitive measures didn't go into effect until 2013. This case ended in 2011.

Williams is seemingly safe. So are former football coaches Butch Davis, John Bunting and (interim) Everett Withers. Poor Larry Fedora, the current coach. The guy inherited this mess.

What penalties hurt the most? Probably some sort of Penn State-like cram down. Bust UNC to the brink of the death penalty. This time, it will be deserved.

What will happen? Probably postseason bans for both major sports. Throw in women's basketball, too, if you care. Scholarships as well. Some sort of fine.

In the end, this is going to look a lot like USC. Athletes who had absolutely nothing to do with the violations are going to pay for the sins of the past.

That oughta clean things up, right?
_

 

fyp

 

Just like Jose Canseco, it appears everything McCant's said was true.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...s-his-former-teammates-show-your-transcripts\

Rashad McCants asks his former teammates: 'Show your transcripts'

The academic/athletic scandal at North Carolina is being kept alive and in conversation in large part because Rashad McCants is the one initiating dialogue. He opened up again on Wednesday -- five days removed from his first sit-down with ESPN -- to speak live on the network's Outside the Lines program.

"Everything that I've said is the truth," McCants said.

Over the course of a 20-minute interview, McCants reiterated his position that he took "paper classes" in 2004-05 that only required him to hand in one paper at the end of the semester. In some cases, McCants claims, tutors were the ones who wrote those papers for him and some of his teammates.

"I'm not going to name names because it's irrelevant," McCants said Wednesday when he was asked who else was involved. "These guys are there to protect Roy (Williams) and his legacy. I'm here to protect student-athletes."

McCants was questioned as to why no one else on the 2004-05 UNC team has supported his claims. His response: "Show your transcripts."

McCants also questioned UNC coach Roy Williams' integrity, asked former college/NBA veteran Jalen Rose to appear on the show, and wore a shirt to signify his new crusade: to stand up and help defend the rights of college players.

Williams put out a statement on Friday that denied McCants' claims. He then did a sit-down with ESPN's Jay Bilas in which he addressed McCants accusations. When asked about McCants' fake classes -- or the possible nefarious academic doings of anyone else on the UNC basketball team in the past -- Williams said, "I have no idea. "I don't sit in the classroom, I don't turn in their papers, but I find that impossible to believe."

Williams also said he "did not have that knowledge" in regard to players' classes and did not "have control over the academic side." McCants claims he had a meeting with Williams during his junior season -- when UNC won the national title -- and inferred there was an understanding that McCants' grades could and would be turned around. Williams said he does not remember having the meeting.

"Maybe he's getting a little old," McCants said Wednesday. "I don't have any control over what he remembers. All I know is the truth, and I'm not up here to lie about anything."

He added that he's not had a relationship with his former teammates nor had much -- if any -- contact with Williams ever since opting to leave school for the NBA after his junior season in 2005. But he did add that he's not necessarily out to get Williams and that he feels “like the media is perpetuating this joust between myself and Roy Williams and the basketball program."

Moments later, McCants said, "If Roy Williams doesn't step up, take responsibility … how is it that you're not accountable for [things] happening off the floor?"

McCants' motivation here lies with an unexpected desire to speak up and bolster rights of former and current college players. He cited UConn's Shabazz Napier -- who made comments critical of the NCAA earlier this spring -- as evidence that "the system" is still in need of a major overhaul. He mentioned that players are not fed enough and not paid sufficiently. Amid all this, he still attacked North Carolina.

“The university has not stepped forth to say anything," McCants said. "This was not an athletic accusation. This was an academic truth."
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If the NCAA tries to say they are not responsible for academic fraud at a University that is a pathetic cop out. A sad passing of the buck. Something like that is where they have the ability to make a real difference in student athletes.

If they truly do just pass the buck- - and the only real punishment for the university is UNC losing accreditation by some organization like the Southern Commission of Colleges for their African and Afro-American Studies (AFRI/AFAM) department -- that does nothing for the betterment of the student athlete experience and maintaining integrity of the game which is what the NCAA is established for.

When you think about how like 47% of the students in those classes were athletes, thats a big deal right there and that's an athletic issue too. UNC has like 30,000 students.. whats the average athlete to student percentage in other departments? It would be shocking if it was 20%! How many athletes are taking classes in the chemistry department for example? probably 0.0008%

The NCAA has a real opportunity here to prove they have some integrity. That it means something to be a student athlete. If they pass the buck on the basketball programs by saying it was an academic fraud issue and acknowledge that the football program was already punished and go back to business issuing citations for coaches that put too much frosting on the cupcakes in recruiting visits they really are a joke organization.

 

Roy Williams had 167 players enrolled in a paper class since he's been there.

Roy's been there for 13 years.

That means he's had close to 13 players a YEAR taking a paper class.

So pretty much every single one of his players took a paper class under his watch (which I don't believe, he had SOME legitimate students) but more likely he had multiple players taking multiple paper classes every year under his watch.

To maintain eligibility.

Of course, only the women's basketball players, the men's football players, the baseball team and the badminton team handed in fake papers.

The basketball player worked REALLY HARD in those classes.

How naive must one be--how much of a non-matricualted superfan do you have to be--to believe that?

Can you imagine you're a football player handing in a fake paper and your best buddy on the basketball team is burning the midnight oil--you'd be busting his balls unmercifully for being a fool.

Or more likely, they all were in it together.

Just like McCants said.

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http://deadspin.com/rashad-mccants-made-the-deans-list-at-unc-without-atte-1587050360

Rashad McCants Made The Dean's List At UNC Without Attending Classes

Rashad McCants, who starred on the 2005 North Carolina championship team, comes clean about his experience at UNC—and says academics could hardly have been more of a sham. He claims he skipped classes, had his papers written for him, and that Roy Williams and the athletic department "100 percent" knew what the school was doing to keep athletes eligible.

McCants opened up to Outside The Lines yesterday, and everything he said backs up what's been reported about UNC's Department of African and Afro-American Studies over the last few years. But it's something very different to hear it coming out of a player's mouth.

Among the allegations:

• McCants made the Dean's List in that championship semester of spring '05, despite never attending four of his classes. He received As in all of them.
• A copy of McCants's transcript shows that in his classes outside Afro-American Studies, he received six Cs, one D and three Fs. In his Afro-American Studies courses, he received 10 As, six Bs, one C, and one D.
• McCants says he was steered by academic advisors to so-called "paper classes," where attendance wasn't necessary and his entire grade would be based on a single term paper at the end of the semester. He says tutors provided by the basketball program would simply write his papers for him.

In 2005, basketball players accounted for 15 enrollments in Afro-American Studies.

"I thought it was a part of the college experience, just like He Got Game or Blue Chips," McCants said. "When you get to college, you don't go to class, you don't do nothing, you just show up and play. That's exactly how it was.

"I think that was the tradition of college basketball, or college, period, any sport. You're not there to get an education, though they tell you that. You're there to make revenue for the college. You're there to put fans in the seats. You're there to bring prestige to the university by winning games."

It's not as if UNC didn't know this was going on. In 2006, the New York Times published an investigation of Auburn's independent-study programs, which similarly kept athletes ineligible without requiring coursework. In response, UNC undertook a review of its own athletes' classes, including, specifically, a look at the Afro-American Studies department.

In 2007, the committee in charge of investigating declared that "No sense exists of a current problem." The program continued disproportionately enrolling athletes for another four years, over which time an internal investigation would later discover 54 classes that were shady as hell.

The NCAA has declined to sanction UNC, and never even contacted faculty whistleblower Mary Willingham, saying the issues were in the field of academics instead of athletics. (Also unsaid: if the NCAA decided to care about no-show classes, there isn't a can opener big enough for all those worms.) But by all means, continue saying athletes shouldn't be paid because they're in college to learn.
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