The NCAA came down hard on the 2007-2008 men’s basketball team, discovering many violations that have led to the wins from that team being vacated from the record books. Chief among those violations is the recruitment of legitimate basketball players for their team. The teams America East regular season and tournament championships will also be vacated.
The erasing of the victories comes as another in a long line of low lights for a basketball program that has not finished with a winning season or an NCAA tournament bid since that time.
“We are deeply disheartened by the NCAA’s decision but we fully accept the consequences,” the UMBC athletic director said. “We should have known that signing multiple quality basketball players would come back to haunt the program one day.”
When asked how he enticed the players to come to the school, the head coach at the time said, “we just offered them scholarships and they said yes. I asked if they were sure three times and they said yes. I was as surprised as anyone.”
Many looked at the 07-08 Retrievers as the best in school history before the violations came to light. Known primarily as an academics first university, the Retrievers men’s basketball team finished 24–9, a 10 win increase from the previous season their most since the 2001 to 2002 season, winning the America East tournament and earning their first NCAA Division I tournament berth in school history. The Retrievers fell to the Georgetown University Hoyas in the first round.
One former student who attended every Retrievers home game as a student, found the quality of play to be different than other years. “The team would make open jump shots, played defense like they knew what they were doing,” the student said. “There were some games where they looked like a top 25 team even. The situation was fishy, I must admit.”
Those Retrievers played so well that they eventually caught the attention of the NCAA, wondering where the school got the players.
“When we saw the play of UMBC during that 2007 season, I remember asking myself, where did these players come from and why aren’t they playing at North Carolina or Kansas?’,” one NCAA official said. “At the very least, they could’ve gone to College Park. We already have Gonzaga and Xavier, we don’t need any more of these smaller schools taking over.”
When asked whether he thought the school was paying the players to attend the school, he chuckled and said, “Of course.”
Along with the vacating of the wins, the school must take down the America East championship banner and place it in storage. NCAA president Mark Emmert spoke more about the scandal at his press conference.
“We hope UMBC takes a hard look in the mirror,” Emmert said. “Hopefully with these vacated wins, the school will learn to stay in their place and stick to what they do best, reading books and playing checkers.”
When a reporter noted that UMBC was known for its chess prowess rather than checkers, Emmert said, “who cares?”
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