The field is set for the 2016 NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four. The first game will feature the University of Oklahoma against Villanova University. The Sooners have never won the title. Villanova had their one magical upset win for the national championship over superpower Georgetown in 1985.
Citing relatively minor recruiting and benefits violations that occurred between the fall of 2001 and March 2003, the panel placed the Villanova Wildcats on two years' probation. The ruling will not keep Villanova from playing on television or participating in postseason play should it qualify, and the school will not lose any scholarships as a result of it. But the program will be watched more closely.
Villanova had its 1971 runner-up position vacated due to having an ineligible player on their roster. Howard Porter, who had signed with an agent prior to the tournament, was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, but the award was taken away by the NCAA.
Oklahoma had about one quarter of its recruiting days this season taken away by the NCAA as punishment for committing major violations while the men's basketball program already was on probation. The NCAA Division I infractions committee reduced the Sooners' recruiting days from 130 to 100 and also put Oklahoma on probation for three years, vacated all 13 wins from the 2009-10 season, took away one scholarship and eliminated two of the school's 12 allowed official visits this year.
The second game will have Syracuse University against the University of North Carolina. Syracuse is the lowest seeded team to reach the Final Four. The Number 10 seed has proved deserving of its bid.
It took nearly eight years for Syracuse and the NCAA to complete an investigation into the school's athletic department. Syracuse is hit with harsh penalties as the NCAA releases its 94-page public report. Head Basketball Coach Jim Boeheim is suspended for nine conference games in the 2015-16 season and has 108 of his victories vacated. The program also has 12 scholarship reductions over a four year period and recruiting limitations, and the school is hit with a financial penalty.
Syracuse issues a response to the NCAA's findings disputing that Boeheim "failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance."
As for the top ranked Tar Heels' of North Carolina , the University has charted a bold course of leading change to improve society and to help solve the world’s greatest problems. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the nation’s first public university, serves North Carolina, the United States, and the world through teaching, research, and public service. We embrace an unwavering commitment to excellence as one of the world’s great research universities.
Our mission is to serve as a center for research, scholarship, and creativity and to teach a diverse community of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students to become the next generation of leaders. Through the efforts of our exceptional faculty and staff, and with generous support from North Carolina’s citizens, we invest our knowledge and resources to enhance access to learning and to foster the success and prosperity of each rising generation. We also extend knowledge-based services and other resources of the University to the citizens of North Carolina and their institutions to enhance the quality of life for all people in the State.
On March 29, 1982, the University of North Carolina (UNC) Tar Heels win the NCAA men’s basketball championship with a 63-62 defeat of the Georgetown University Hoyas. It was the first title for Carolina coach Dean Smith, who would retire in 1997 as the most successful coach in NCAA Division I men’s basketball history with 879 career wins.
Smith, who graduated 97 percent of his players while at Carolina, would win his second and final championship with UNC in 1993.
North Carolina men’s basketball coach Roy Williams responded with a full-throated defense of his health and sharp criticism of a recent Washington Post story about him. The story, written by Kent Babb, detailed the apparent physical and emotional toll the past year has taken on Williams, whose team will face Syracuse in the Final Four on Saturday night in Houston and whose program is being investigated by the NCAA following accusations of academic fraud. "I haven’t read it, don’t care to read it, never will read it."
Attorneys representing two former University of North Carolina athletes filed a lawsuit against the university and the NCAA in connection with the academic scandal involving Tar Heels athletes. The suit, which seeks to become a class action, was filed in a North Carolina state court on behalf of women's basketball player Rashanda McCants and football player Devon Ramsay. Also involved in a lawsuit against the University of North Carolina and the NCAA is Rashad McCants, brother of Rashanda. Rashad McCants claimed to have taken phony classes at North Carolina and had tutors write his classwork. McCants compared UNC to a prison, stating, "You're not allowed to say certain things, but once you get out of jail, you're free. (I'm) in my sentence, and I'm doing my time."
One trustee asked about Mary Willingham, who had been quoted in The News & Observer of Raleigh about her time as a reading specialist at UNC. Willingham told the paper she had worked with athletes who couldn’t read and didn’t know what a paragraph was. She said she had complained about athletes remaining eligible to play despite not doing their academic work.
Calling parts of the report “painful,” Board Chair Wade Hargrove said the academic issues “strike at the heart of the core values of the University. In facing and correcting these lapses, we honor more than 200 years of commitment by members of the faculty, the staff and the administration — past and present — to assure that every student who comes here receives a rigorous, challenging and meaningful academic experience. These irregularities must never be allowed to occur again.”
While AFAM(African and Afro American) was the only department found to have fraudulent practices, six others — communications studies, Romance languages, linguistics, dramatic art, exercise and sport science, and naval science — showed “curious features” that were found to have “rationally acceptable explanations.”
A “dozen or so” courses listed as independent studies had instructor signatures that appeared to be forged. Martin said that eight AFAM faculty members had been unwittingly drawn into the issue of forged signatures but were innocent of malfeasance.
At the center of the probe was Nyang’oro, the department’s first and only chair until he resigned as chair under pressure in August 2011. Nyang’oro joined the faculty in 1988 and became chair of the curriculum in 1992, then chaired the department for 15 years. Evidence of fraud subsequently uncovered involved more than 50 classes, many of which had been taught in summer sessions by Nyang’oro.
Last October, an independent investigator released a report that found evidence directly tying years of no-show classes at North Carolina to a scheme that helped hundreds of athletes — particularly football and men's basketball players — raise their grades and stay eligible over an 18-year period.
We can’t be the world-class university that we are and the economic driver for the state that we are if there are any questions about our integrity.”
In the words of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell' " Ignorance is not an excuse." After all the games in the tournament have been completed, the NCAA Investigative Committee is going to throw the book at the University of North Carolina and Men's head basketball coach Roy Williams . It is too bad that Mister Rogers isn't around to read it to them.
2016 NCAA Men's Basketball Champions
Paul Murphy
Follow me on Twitter at @_prmurphy
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