The scandal that has been uncovered involving the North Carolina football team has been ugly for a number of reasons.
It was, more or less, the triple crown of violations.
Players were receiving impermissible benefits and having lavish trips paid for; an assistant coach was a runner for an NFL agent; and, of course, there was the requisite academic fraud.
And it was more than just simple fraud in the tutoring department, as the Tar Heels have had a major scandal uncovered that has already cost a university department head his job.
The question that interests us involves the potential that the scandal stretched into the hoops side. UNC is undoubtedly a basketball school, and if a basketball school has that much cheating going on with the football team, what are the chances that the hoops team was involved as well? From the News & Observer:
UNC-CH men’s basketball coach Roy Williams said Thursday that the academic fraud case is not a basketball issue. “I’m worried about it from a university issue, but not from a basketball issue,” he said.
Some have cited the low percentage of basketball players enrolling in the 54 classes that university officials say showed little or no instruction. Three percent, or 23 enrollments, does seem small. But it doesn’t take many athletes to field a basketball team – five on the floor plus several backups. If Williams fielded a new team each of the four years of the period under review, 23 enrollments could equal one in three players taking a suspect class.
Furthermore, the records show that in two cases a basketball player was the sole enrollee in a class. In another, a basketball player was one of two enrollees. Two of those three classes were Swahili language courses, and are among nine classes in which officials can’t identify who created them and provided some kind of assignment.
Put another way, here are two language classes in which students would be expected to develop their speaking skills that never met. And they had no more than two students enrolled. How were they expected to practice speaking the language?
It is all speculative at this point, but it makes you wonder: is there more to this investigation on the hoops side than we know about?
Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @robdauster.
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- floridapack - Jun 18, 2012 at 6:08 PM
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UNC has not had a significant contributing basketball player become academically ineligible since 1973. That’s a pretty staggering statistic if you are running a clean program. Are there sill adults credulous enough to believe UNC & their fairy tale “Carolina Way” image anymore? You can really recruit & accomplish great things in college sports if your players are immune from academic woes. Truth is the whole academic scandal was created for basketball long before Butch Davis & football crashed the party.
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- ncaawhowhatwhenwherey - Jun 18, 2012 at 6:27 PM
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Everyone knows these classes were set up for the basketball team, well everyone except for the NCAA? ??! Funny, they were running one of these fraudulent classes in the summer of 2011, WHILE THE NCAA WAS ON CAMPUS “INVESTIGATING”! Good stuff there huh….Uconn loses their postseason rights for a low apr while unc sets up fake classes to boost their apr …amazing! Guess thats what you get for trying to play by the rules uconn….every school should just follow suit with uncCHEAT at this point, obviously it is acceptable without repercussions ….cheaters obviously do win in the NCAA / real world..absolutely amazing, not ONE BASKETBALL PLAYER IN-ELIGIBLE IN MORE THAN THREE DECADES….WOW! nothing to see here, MOVE ALONG
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- dickiebaddour - Jun 18, 2012 at 9:14 PM
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It is a shame that the Huskies will have to watch the Heels on CBS instead of playing them in the NCAA tourney. They should recruit smarter players and players that genetically opposed to fouling. The biggest shame is that UNC has told their Carolina Way lie so long, they actually believe it themselves.
I think their arrogance and sloppiness might bring down their house of cards for all to see.
It’ll be interesting to see how many titles they win when the field and court are level.
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- wolverineinchicago - Jun 18, 2012 at 9:43 PM
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wow… that is pretty alarming. fake classes set up for athletics? osu, has to be jealous they didn’t think of that.
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- ncaawhowhatwhenwherey - Jun 18, 2012 at 10:22 PM
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The NCAA, the ACC(whom the commish is the former AD of unCHEAT, as well a former “student athlete” of the same said “university “), along with the BOG’s, in which 80%+ of this board of governors are unCHEAT alums themselves … lol….may not have the brass to proceed with due justice nor to obtain proper punishment, but there’s this little thing that Roy, the NCAA, the BOG, etc. cannot control ….and that one little thing that seems to be eating them alive my friends is KARMA! KARMA GOIN’ GET YA’! and there’s just thunder banging right now, soon the lighting will be striking, and all of a sudden BOOM! the winds of change pick up and all those walls surrounding all that fraud begin to fall! And it’s a long way down…..enjoy your ride, I know I will!
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- wolverineinchicago - Jun 18, 2012 at 10:52 PM
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^ can someone translate that for me?
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- swellsmac - Jun 19, 2012 at 8:39 AM
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I assume you live in Chicago and are underexposed to this story due to the national media’s failure to cover the damning evidence against UNC that has recently come to light. I will attempt to translate the above for clarity:
The commissioner of the ACC, John Swofford is the former athletic director at UNC as well as a UNC student-athlete alum. Twenty-two (22) of thirty-five (35) members (~63% membership) on the University of North Carolina System Board of Governors are alumni of UNC-Chapel Hill despite UNC-Chapel Hill being home to roughly 13% of the student population system-wide. This disparate representation within the governing bodies of the athletic and academic affiliations of the university coupled with the NCAA’s failure to publicly address the academic fraud to date would ostensibly suggest that the authorities with the power to take corrective action are faced with a conflict of interest. The poster is suggesting that in holding absolute control over the unpleasantness, these parties are unable to proceed with due process to ensure that the fraud is addressed and that appropriate punitive action is taken in an effort to mitigate the corruption.
The rest, regarding karma, I will leave to the reader to interpret
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- badintent - Jun 19, 2012 at 12:48 AM
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everyone knows that Swahaili is up there with Spanish, French and Eubonics classes. in colleges. Except at Duke. No Strippers, no Eubonics, no Sh@t.
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- readingrfundimental - Jun 19, 2012 at 8:22 AM
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It’s amazingly obvious this has been going on for years, but not once has the UNC dominated board of governors raised questions. They continue to stonewall, obfuscate and cover up. The fact that they won’t ask for an independent investigation of the scandal is a slap in the face to all honest North Carolinians. Instead they “review the investigation”.
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- quaybon - Jun 19, 2012 at 12:25 PM
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What’s the point of even having them go to class? Most of the big recruits will be leaving for the NBA after their freshman year anyway, so it just does not matter.
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- ncaawhowhatwhenwherey - Jun 19, 2012 at 5:31 PM
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Well quaybon, name the last recruit to leave for the nba after their freshman year at unc….been a while huh???? Therefore they must keep their gpa up to participate in college athletics. Thats where the fake classes come into play. I do see your point, but thats another day, another story. Unc has been using this trick to help stay above the competition. They have admitted publicly that these courses did not have an instructor, a classroom…hell they admitted they don’t even know who started these classes, now this is not speculation, this is from the horses’ mouth ..let that sink in for a moment! These same classes were utilized by MANY of the players on the basketball team-FACT. SEVERAL PLAYERS from the 09′ title team were involved -another FACT.
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- readingrfundimental - Jun 19, 2012 at 2:00 PM
