Final Four puts scandal spotlight on North Carolina, Syracuse

In some ways North Carolina’s is potentially the mother of all academic scandals in college sports, and there have been doozies over the decades.

Violations occurred at Chapel Hill over nearly two decades, from 1993 through 2011, and involved multiple sports and more than 3,000 athletes, including men’s basketball players.

The story has simmered and blazed since first being reported in 2010 and originally involved the football program. The trouble spread after the discovery of phony classes and improper help for students, including athletes, to improve their GPAs.

Today, the scandal gets microscope treatment for two reasons. The Tar Heels have advanced to the Final Four, where a media throng awaited coach Roy Williams and the team.

Also, the school North Carolina is playing in a national semifinal Saturday is Syracuse, which has just been released from NCAA and self-imposed sanction shackles for violations related to academic fraud, impermissible benefits and the school not following its own drug policy.

Some in the media have dubbed the matchup a nightmare or an embarrassment. North Carolina is one of college basketball’s most storied programs. Syracuse is a perennial winner. Both coaches, the Tar Heels’ Roy Williams and the Orange’s Jim Boeheim, are enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

But here they are on college basketball’s biggest stage, responding to questions about violations and in North Carolina’s case, sanctions.

“We’ve had to deal with the residual effects of it,” North Carolina guard Marcus Paige said. “We’ve been dealing with questions that don’t apply to us.”

He’s right. Nobody on the North Carolina roster was around when the violations occurred. Same with the Syracuse roster.

The Orange removed their program from the NCAA Tournament last year and that ban was accepted by the NCAA. Coach Jim Boeheim forfeited 108 career victories and sat out nine games this season.

Boeheim raised eyebrows when he said the program wasn’t “cheating.”

“When they say ‘cheating’ that’s not true,” Boeheim said. “Rules being broken is a lot different.”

Cheating, to Boeheim, in his 40th season as head coach and part of the program as a player or assistant coach since the early 1960s, is arranging a job for a recruit. Boeheim said Syracuse was unaware it was breaking rules when they occurred.

NCAA president Mark Emmert disagreed.

“I’ll let Coach Boeheim define that how he wants to,” Emmert said. “But the Committee on Infractions determined these are clear violations of rules and that, therefore, warranted some pretty significant sanctions, and they were imposed.”

North Carolina is waiting for word on a resolution, which was delayed last August when the university announced it had found additional violations in the women’s basketball and men’s soccer programs.

“Obviously a very complex circumstance,” Emmert said. “It’s been moving along very well. The university has been very cooperative. We’ll be at a place where my staff can issue allegations or notice of allegations in the very near future.”

Once North Carolina receives a notice of allegations, it has 90 days to respond. The NCAA can issue a response and set a date before the Committee on Infractions. Once there, another three or four months could pass before punishment is announced.

The Tar Heels, like Syracuse last year and Louisville this year, could have self-imposed a postseason ban.

That didn’t happen, and North Carolina, with its deep and talented team, finished first in the Atlantic Coast Conference season, won the ACC Tournament and was the only No. 1 seed to reach the Final Four. The Tar Heels are favored to cut down the nets Monday night, and it’s in the basketball environment where Williams, the former Kansas coach, gets away from the talk of violations and sanctions.

“It’s not just a workplace for me,” Williams said. “It’s been painful, it’s been hurtful. This group of kids has helped me focus on basketball. It’s been a sweet, sweet run. Hopefully we can do some more.”

This story was originally published April 1, 2016 at 6:19 PM with the headline "Final Four puts scandal spotlight on North Carolina, Syracuse."