OT: Villanova Men Win it With a 3 at the Buzzer

[j66kicker]

Villanova vs. North Carolina - Game Summary - April 4, 2016 - ESPN

Great game! (especially to see NC lose - now on to the NCAA penalties - ??)

 

[Kaizen]

Last second Kris Jenkins made Three Point Jumper.

 

[BigBird]

Now those fine young men can return to the things that matter. Like hiring an agent in some cases. For others, they will just go back to attending non-existant classes.

 

[sarals24]

Both men's and women's national champions will be from the old Big East

 

[ctdad]

A game like that would be great for WBB. It would not be good for the tickers of Huskyland, but it would great for the sport.

That being said, there will be no such drama tomorrow night.

 

[Mdoggie]

Now those fine young men can return to the things that matter. Like hiring an agent in some cases. For others, they will just go back to attending non-existant classes.

Was that really necessary?

 

[MilfordHusky]

Clutch shooting by Villanova all night long: 58% tonight, after 72% on Saturday. Overall for the tourney, 58%, which set a post-1985 record.

UNC hit a dry spell in the second half, but was insanely hot from the arc in the first half. And a classic finish.

I'm hoping for NO drama tomorrow night.

 

[Hongster]

Glad to see Jay Wright finally has his day in the sun. But, what a classic though.

 

[bags27]

Was that really necessary?

I get what you're saying; BigBird struck me as a bit harsh, too. But I watched only the last 5 minutes of the game for reasons not dissimilar to BigBird's cynicism. Even the idea of playing before 70,000 "intimate" fans, shows it's not about watching basketball, but watching monitors and getting "the experience." It's become as packaged and managed as (gasp!) the NFL. They may be good and honest kids and even "student athletes," but for me, at least, it's hard to trust any reality about big-time MCBB anymore.

 

[stamfordhusky]

I get what you're saying; BigBird struck me as a bit harsh, too. But I watched only the last 5 minutes of the game for reasons not dissimilar to BigBird's cynicism. Even the idea of playing before 70,000 "intimate" fans, shows it's not about watching basketball, but watching monitors and getting "the experience." It's become as packaged and managed as (gasp!) the NFL. They may be good and honest kids and even "student athletes," but for me, at least, it's hard to trust any reality about big-time MCBB anymore.

There's a big difference between Villanova's commitment to academics for its athletes and that of North Carolina. Also a big difference on that score between Jay Wright, a Bucknell alum whose players all graduate, and Roy Williams.

 

[alexrgct]

Nova won on a clutch shot made through good karma, some of which was accrued by obliterating the Oklahoma Sooners.

 

[bags27]

There's a big difference between Villanova's commitment to academics for its athletes and that of North Carolina. Also a big difference on that score between Jay Wright, a Bucknell alum whose players all graduate, and Roy Williams.

If that's true about graduation rates, that's indisputable. But before the scandal at North Carolina emerged, many of us, at least, would have thought it an exemplary school for the "student-athlete." There are only 4 or 5 public universities in the country more distinguished academically, and one assumes (maybe a false assumption) that they are careful about these things.

 

[Charliebball]

OTE="BigBird, post: 1653731, member: 4247"]Now those fine young men can return to the things that matter. Like hiring an agent in some cases. For others, they will just go back to attending non-existant classes.[/QUOTE]


Please don't paint this year's UNC team with such a broad brush. Here area couple of players that seem to be doing pretty well for themselves academically and in a non-basketball leadership capacity.

University of North Carolina senior guard Marcus Paige is a first-team Academic All-America as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America .

The senior from Marion, Iowa, is a double major in media and journalism/history. He is a two-time recipient of the Skip Prosser Award as the Atlantic Coast Conference’s top scholar-athlete for men’s basketball, and previously was a second-team Academic America in both 2014 and 2015.OTE="BigBird, post: 1653731, member: 4247"]Now those fine young men can return to the things that matter. Like hiring an agent in some cases. For others, they will just go back to attending non-existant classes.[/QUOTE]

CHAPEL HILL – Joel James, a rising senior on the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team, has been selected to represent the Atlantic Coast Conference on the NCAA’s National Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.

Each of the 31 Division I conferences selects one student-athlete to represent it on the committee. The members of the advisory committee respond to proposed NCAA legislation, review and comment on governance matters and other subjects of interest and participate in administering athletic programs and the NCAA.

James is a member of the advisory committees for UNC’s Student-Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC) and the ACC’s Student-Athlete Advisory Council. He attended the NCAA Leadership Forum in Florida in April.

 

[BigBird]

Was that really necessary?

Yes.

 

[Charliebball]

If that's true about graduation rates, that's indisputable. But before the scandal at North Carolina emerged, many of us, at least, would have thought it an exemplary school for the "student-athlete." There are only 4 or 5 public universities in the country more distinguished academically, and one assumes (maybe a false assumption) that they are careful about these things.

For those on this forum with open minds regarding what the UNC Academic scandal was really about, here's an opinion from one of the athletic counselors which many UNC folks believe to be closer to the truth:

"The AFAM paper-class scandal was not an athletics-driven scandal. It was the result of a department chair's and his assistant's misguided efforts to help struggling students, and it was allowed to persist because of the deans' negligence. The academic counselors for athletes learned about the paper classes but had assurance from multiple deans that the department chair had the autonomy to conduct the classes in whatever manner he chose. Yet the counselors have received considerable blame, being scapegoated to protect the deans. Nyang'oro and Crowder were able to conduct some form of the paper-classes for nearly two decades without any deans addressing their substandard quality. Accordingly, this scandal should have demonstrated the neglect prestigious research universities show toward teaching undergraduates. However, the media saw a sexier story in an athletics scandal, and the University was content to allow that narrative to develop. As a result, good people have been hurt. Fortunately, most of those good people have been able to move on. That's what I hope to do, too."

 

[bags27]

I don't know enough about this case, but this is most certainly not the whole story. It most certainly was the dept. chair and his assistant, and it wasn't a misguided effort to help struggling students, unless misguided is interpreted as giving students grades that didn't work for or deserve. And, oh by the way, keeping enrollments artificially high in a field that doesn't normally get high enrollments. That's at least my impression when I was following this. I'm not saying a dean or deans didn't look the other way. But a dept chair should not require supervision on the essential question of academic integrity. To blame the dean for that is like blaming the mayor of a city when someone commits a violent crime. And yes, from what I at least understand, disproportionately athletics took advantage of this.

 

[Charliebball]

I don't know enough about this case, but this is most certainly not the whole story. It most certainly was the dept. chair and his assistant, and it wasn't a misguided effort to help struggling students, unless misguided is interpreted as giving students grades that didn't work for or deserve. And, oh by the way, keeping enrollments artificially high in a field that doesn't normally get high enrollments. That's at least my impression when I was following this. I'm not saying a dean or deans didn't look the other way. But a dept chair should not require supervision on the essential question of academic integrity. To blame the dean for that is like blaming the mayor of a city when someone commits a violent crime. And yes, from what I at least understand, disproportionately athletics took advantage of this.

Bradly Bethel who I just quoted, quit his job at UNC in order to write a documentary about the scandal "The film was advertised as the story of the “other side” of the UNC academic-athletic scandal, revolving around personal interviews with Bethel’s close friends, Lee and former athletic tutor Beth Bridger. Bridger and Lee were fired after investigator Kenneth Wainstein’s report revealed their involvement in the paper classes within the former Department of African and Afro-American Studies. Bethel said he specifically hoped to correct what he called the media’s sensationalism of the scandal. “‘If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed,’ Mark Twain,” the first scene of the movie read. The most revealing interview was with former UNC Chancellor James Moeser, who was at the helm of the University when the number of paper classes peaked. “AFAM was given a kind of pass because no one wanted to be seen as dealing harshly with the African, the African-American studies department — candidly,” Moeser said when asked why deans that had knowledge of irregular classes did not act. “It was a corruption of our higher values. These were people who were trying to help other people — people who were mostly poor, mostly black, coming from very poor households — and trying to give them a leg up.” Bridger, Lee and Deunta Williams, a former UNC football player, defended the rigor of the paper classes. “Some of the topics these kids had to write about, they got more out of that than sitting in a math class or sitting in a history class,” Bridger said in the film. Wainstein’s report found that the classes, which began in 1993 and ended in 2011, helped boost athletes’ and non-athletes’ GPAs and were favorably graded by former office administrator Deborah Crowder, a non-faculty member. Bethel challenged the Wainstein report — and UNC administration’s response — throughout the film. “University leaders seemed content to let those associated with athletics take the blame, and the news media quickly propagated this narrative,” one Bethel voice-over said. Bethel asked why his two friends were found responsible of academic fraud by Wainstein but not the deans above them. The film said Chancellor Carol Folt declined to be interviewed and former UNC-system President Tom Ross did not respond to a request for an interview. UNC spokesperson Jim Gregory said the chancellor does not comment on personnel issues but provided Bethel with materials on personnel decisions stemming from the Wainstein report. Many journalists who have reported on the UNC scandal either declined to be interviewed or were not allowed to do an interview by their news agencies, according to the film, including The (Raleigh) News & Observer’s Dan Kane, CNN’s Sara Ganim and HBO Real Sports’ Bernard Goldberg. Wainstein also declined to be interviewed for the film. Bethel quit his job at the University last year to work on the project, which was crowdfunded and raised $50,000 in its first day. The film eventually raised more than $140,000.

Read more: ‘Unverified’ documentary challenges UNC academic-athletic scandal narratives :: The Daily Tar Heel
Quoted from The Daily Tar Heel

 

[Stinger92860]

There's a big difference between Villanova's commitment to academics for its athletes and that of North Carolina. Also a big difference on that score between Jay Wright, a Bucknell alum whose players all graduate, and Roy Williams.

THIS

 

[bags27]

Bradly Bethel who I just quoted, quit his job at UNC in order to write a documentary about the scandal. Read more: ‘Unverified’ documentary challenges UNC academic-athletic scandal narratives :: The Daily Tar HeelQuoted from The Daily Tar Heel

Hi Charliebball, I really appreciate your taking all the time to respond in such detail. I have to admit this isn't a time for me to read all this and come to my own independent opinion (as you would want me to); maybe in a couple of days when life returns to normal, I'll look forward to reading through it all. But any scandal involving any type of administration is going to have some people running for cover and others yelling at the top of their lungs in pretense of complete innocence. I guess I'm skeptical that any side of anything that stinks so much has all the right on its side. But I appreciate your posting this, because it's clear that there are many sides of this.

 

[stamfordhusky]

Hi Charliebball, I really appreciate your taking all the time to respond in such detail. I have to admit this isn't a time for me to read all this and come to my own independent opinion (as you would want me to); maybe in a couple of days when life returns to normal, I'll look forward to reading through it all.

I suggest you do that. Charliebball has provided one side of the story. It doesn't completely jive with what most neutral parties have found. A few interesting articles from the past 18 months:

UNC records show deep dependence on fake classes

Fake classes, inflated grades: Massive UNC scandal included athletes over 2 decades

UNC probe: Advisers pushed sham classes

Google and you can find 100 others. Mary Willingham, a UNC learning specialist who became a whistle-blower, reported that some athletes were reading at a second grade level and yet managed to stay eligible thanks to these courses.

Quotes:

"The focus was courses that required only a research paper that was often scanned quickly by a secretary, who gave out high grades regardless of the quality of work. The report also outlined how counselors for athletes steered struggling students to the classes, with two counselors even suggesting grades. Several knew the courses were easy and didn't have an instructor."

"The report, released Wednesday, says academic advisers in North Carolina's athletic department colluded with a manager in the African and Afro-American Studies department for student-athletes to take classes to boost their GPAs and keep them eligible in their respective sports. The classes, in place from 1993 to 2011, were overseen by Debby Crowder, the longtime manager in the African and Afro-American Studies department, and later by the department chairman. They allowed a student to write a paper of at least 10 pages rather than attend lectures or meet with professors. The papers were graded by Crowder, who was not a professor. They typically earned an A or B-plus grade.

The report . . . said some academic advisers in the school's Academic Support Program for Student Athletes had ties to Crowder and let her know how high a student's grade needed to be to maintain a 2.0 GPA to be eligible to play. It also said that those advisers pushed Crowder to make exceptions for athletes, including allowing them to enroll in classes after the registration period had ended."

"Though not a faculty member, Crowder registered students for the courses, assigned topics and handed out high grades regardless of the work and also signed Nyang'oro's name to grade rolls. By 1999, in an apparent effort to work around the number of independent studies students could take, Crowder began offering lecture classes that didn't meet. "

"After her retirement in 2009, Nyang'oro met requests from football counselors to continue the sham classes and graded papers "with an eye to boosting" a student's grade-point average."

"Crowder was such a fan of UNC sports, particularly basketball, that she would sometimes miss work after a loss, the report says.
It was well-known on campus that Crowder was a lax grader and gave high grades without regard for content, Wainstein said. . . Wainstein did find that five counselors actively used paper classes, calling them "GPA boosters," and that at least two counselors, one in football, suggested to Crowder the grade an athlete needed to receive to be able to continue to play."

"Investigators said they talked once to former UNC academic adviser Mary Willingham, who questioned the literacy level of Tar Heels athletes and said UNC had committed academic misconduct before leaving the job in 2010. A report that men's basketball coach Roy Williams told Willingham her only job was to keep his players eligible was not verified;"

"Former head football coach John Bunting admitted that he knew of the paper classes and said that former Director of Football Cynthia Reynolds told him they were part of her strategy to keep players eligible. "


And finally, here is a research paper, in its entirety, that earned an athlete an A- for a semester:

On the evening of December Rosa Parks decided that she was going to sit in the white people section on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. During this time blacks had to give up there seats to whites when more whites got on the bus. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Her and the bus driver began to talk and the conversation went like this. “Let me have those front seats” said the driver. She didn’t get up and told the driver that she was tired of giving her seat to white people. “I’m going to have you arrested,” said the driver. “You may do that,” Rosa Parks responded. Two white policemen came in and Rosa Parks asked them “why do you all push us around?” The police officer replied and said “I don’t know, but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.

Note; This is the ENTIRE paper.

 

[bags27]

Thank you Stamfordhusky. This is the nature of the world we live in today: that people can always find an audience, because media is eternally interested in churning all sides of a controversial question. So, in the end it becomes messaged away. During the game last night, I heard an announcer say to the effect, that, after all, none of these players was there during the scandal. As if that exculpates the University. Again, there are multiple versions, and I'm refraining from judgment about various individuals. But I do know that department chairs who conduct themselves thus cannot use "feeling badly for students who really shouldn't be here, but I'm helping them through," as an excuse, nor blame it on a dean who may or may not know what they're doing. It doesn't mean that there wasn't some tacit approval higher up. But professors are responsible for maintaining high academic standards. That is the alpha and omega of academic integrity.

 

[BigBird]

I spent 40 years in higher education. I made errors from time to time, but none that required me to produce a documentary to defend my conduct, my career, or my integrity.

I have also served as a faculty committee member for institutional accreditation. Even if the NCAA gives UNC a pass (how could they?), the accrediting body should come down on the university like a hammer from hell. These weren't minor violations of fine print rules. They were, it strongly appears, violations of the core principles that constitute a university's reason to exist.

UNC won't be stripped of its accreditation. But there are meaningful sanctions available of sufficient severity to ensure that in the future, UNC's curriculum is at least real.

 

[Charliebball]

I suggest you do that. Charliebball has provided one side of the story. It doesn't completely jive with what most neutral parties have found. A few interesting articles from the past 18 months

Mary Willingham, a UNC learning specialist who became a whistle-blower, reported that some athletes were reading at a second grade level and yet managed to stay eligible thanks to these courses.

I don't want to use a UConn forum to defend UNC.....some of what has taken place there is pretty awful, however much that has been reported in the mainstream press has been tainted with anti UNC bias often by those at the school who had something to hide themselves....take for instance Mary Willingham who is one of the school's most outspoken critics.....here is a response to some of her writings:

Mary Willingham's Brilliantly Unethical Tweet

Mary Willingham's latest tweet is as brilliant as it is unethical and unlawful. In her tweet, she revealed academic information about the starting basketball players on the 2005 national championship team.

'05' UNC basketball champs starting 5 +1 took a combined 69 paper classes. truth=transcripts=transparency. A real education= #ncaareform

— Mary Willingham (@paperclassinc) April 7, 2014

Of course, the ethics are obvious: an educator should not reveal information from students' academic records without students' consent. Willingham did just that.

However, the legal issue is not obvious to those unfamiliar with FERPA. The Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is the federal law protecting the privacy of adult students. FERPA can be violated in two ways relevant to our discussion. The first, and perhaps most overlooked, way to violate FERPA is to access a student's records without either a "legitimate educational interest" or the student's written consent. To have a legitimate educational interest, one's job must relate to one's purpose for accessing the records. For example, advisors have a legitimate educational interest in accessing their advisees' records because advisors need to analyze those records in order to appropriately advise. The purpose of legitimate educational interest is to protect students' privacy from university employees who may want to access students' records for the employee's personal, not professional, objectives (e.g., research to support one's political agenda or to secure a book deal).


In a previous blog entry, I questioned whether Willingham violated FERPA when she accessed football players' records to report aggregate grades for a "cohort" of 17 football players who played in the most recent bowl game. Similarly, her recent tweet indicates she accessed basketball players' records strictly to calculate how many "paper" classes they took. Willingham, to my knowledge, currently has no legitimate educational interest in accessing those records, and her doing so appears, to me, an obvious FERPA violation.


The second, and most obvious, way to violate FERPA is to go beyond accessing students' records, to disclosing identifiable academic information from those records. When Willingham was reporting aggregate grades from the football team, the data was sufficiently de-identified to protect the players' anonymity. However, in her latest tweet, the data she revealed can be attached to five individuals easily identified. With her tweet, Willingham seems to have committed not just a violation of access but also a violation of disclosure.


To explain the twisted brilliance of this stunt, I need to point out that Willingham's assertion may be untrue. She claims six basketball players took 69 paper classes, but as I have pointed out in multiple blog entries, she has used inflated statistics and embellished anecdotes before. Her recent stunt involving the Rosa Parks paper further reveals the unreliability of her testimony. Her tweet may very well be more bogus than the 69 classes reported in it.


Yet that is exactly why the tweet is so abhorrently brilliant. We can never know the truth with certainty. Because five of the six students are identifiable, the university cannot comment. To do so, the university itself would become guilty of violating FERPA. UNC can neither confirm nor deny Willingham's allegation.


Consequently, Willingham has effectively cast permanent doubt on the legitimacy of the 2005 national championship team. We may never know the truth, but UNC-haters will undoubtedly insist Willingham was telling the truth, regardless of how questionable her credibility becomes. She has left an indelible blemish of doubt on the 2005 championship banner hanging in the Dean Dome.


This stunt of hers is telling of Paper Class Inc.'s true mission. Contrary to what they claim, Willingham and her allies are not working to help student-athletes experience a meaningful education: her tweet does nothing to advance any such noble mission. No, she and her co-conspirators are working to undermine college athletics and take down UNC's banners at all costs. The nature of their mission is now clearly destructive, and their philosophy is "by any means necessary."

 

[Charliebball]

Sorry resending this response regarding Mary Willingham....one of the major UNC critics


Mary Willingham's Brilliantly Unethical Tweet

Mary Willingham's latest tweet is as brilliant as it is unethical and unlawful. In her tweet, she revealed academic information about the starting basketball players on the 2005 national championship team.


'05' UNC basketball champs starting 5 +1 took a combined 69 paper classes. truth=transcripts=transparency. A real education= #ncaareform

— Mary Willingham (@paperclassinc) April 7, 2014


Of course, the ethics are obvious: an educator should not reveal information from students' academic records without students' consent. Willingham did just that.


However, the legal issue is not obvious to those unfamiliar with FERPA. The Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is the federal law protecting the privacy of adult students. FERPA can be violated in two ways relevant to our discussion. The first, and perhaps most overlooked, way to violate FERPA is to access a student's records without either a "legitimate educational interest" or the student's written consent. To have a legitimate educational interest, one's job must relate to one's purpose for accessing the records. For example, advisors have a legitimate educational interest in accessing their advisees' records because advisors need to analyze those records in order to appropriately advise. The purpose of legitimate educational interest is to protect students' privacy from university employees who may want to access students' records for the employee's personal, not professional, objectives (e.g., research to support one's political agenda or to secure a book deal).


In a previous blog entry, I questioned whether Willingham violated FERPA when she accessed football players' records to report aggregate grades for a "cohort" of 17 football players who played in the most recent bowl game. Similarly, her recent tweet indicates she accessed basketball players' records strictly to calculate how many "paper" classes they took. Willingham, to my knowledge, currently has no legitimate educational interest in accessing those records, and her doing so appears, to me, an obvious FERPA violation.


The second, and most obvious, way to violate FERPA is to go beyond accessing students' records, to disclosing identifiable academic information from those records. When Willingham was reporting aggregate grades from the football team, the data was sufficiently de-identified to protect the players' anonymity. However, in her latest tweet, the data she revealed can be attached to five individuals easily identified. With her tweet, Willingham seems to have committed not just a violation of access but also a violation of disclosure.


To explain the twisted brilliance of this stunt, I need to point out that Willingham's assertion may be untrue. She claims six basketball players took 69 paper classes, but as I have pointed out in multiple blog entries, she has used inflated statistics and embellished anecdotes before. Her recent stunt involving the Rosa Parks paper further reveals the unreliability of her testimony. Her tweet may very well be more bogus than the 69 classes reported in it.


Yet that is exactly why the tweet is so abhorrently brilliant. We can never know the truth with certainty. Because five of the six students are identifiable, the university cannot comment. To do so, the university itself would become guilty of violating FERPA. UNC can neither confirm nor deny Willingham's allegation.


Consequently, Willingham has effectively cast permanent doubt on the legitimacy of the 2005 national championship team. We may never know the truth, but UNC-haters will undoubtedly insist Willingham was telling the truth, regardless of how questionable her credibility becomes. She has left an indelible blemish of doubt on the 2005 championship banner hanging in the Dean Dome.


This stunt of hers is telling of Paper Class Inc.'s true mission. Contrary to what they claim, Willingham and her allies are not working to help student-athletes experience a meaningful education: her tweet does nothing to advance any such noble mission. No, she and her co-conspirators are working to undermine college athletics and take down UNC's banners at all costs. The nature of their mission is now clearly destructive, and their philosophy is "by any means necessary."

 

[j66kicker]

For those on this forum with open minds regarding what the UNC Academic scandal was really about, here's an opinion from one of the athletic counselors which many UNC folks believe to be closer to the truth:

"The AFAM paper-class scandal was not an athletics-driven scandal. It was the result of a department chair's and his assistant's misguided efforts to help struggling students, and it was allowed to persist because of the deans' negligence. The academic counselors for athletes learned about the paper classes but had assurance from multiple deans that the department chair had the autonomy to conduct the classes in whatever manner he chose. Yet the counselors have received considerable blame, being scapegoated to protect the deans. Nyang'oro and Crowder were able to conduct some form of the paper-classes for nearly two decades without any deans addressing their substandard quality. Accordingly, this scandal should have demonstrated the neglect prestigious research universities show toward teaching undergraduates. However, the media saw a sexier story in an athletics scandal, and the University was content to allow that narrative to develop. As a result, good people have been hurt. Fortunately, most of those good people have been able to move on. That's what I hope to do, too."

Appreciate the other side of the story but, with all due respect, IMO that's all a bunch of cr*p. The amount of money UNC's highest level administrators have spent on lawyers and PR firms, trying to spin this thing, with a pattern of always denying until they can no longer deny, then firing a scapegoat... It's just a load of crap. I read Willingham's book. Even if she has an axe to grind and is out to get somebody, it still can't be denied that the athletic dept. counsellors colluded with the "academics" to place student athletes in non-existent courses, get them specific grades on critical papers, and otherwise manipulate athletic eligibility in ways that are beyond anything that cold be considered 'normal' or 'acceptable.' It is the very complicity of the academic departments than makes this so egregious.

That said I have an open mind and would like to see the documentary.