This is today’s Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook as heard on 97.9 WCHL. You can listen to previous Sports Notebooks here.

Earth to Jay and Mary.

Well, I see that Jay Smith and Mary Willingham used my column on Sylvia Hatchell as another excuse to rehash the entire academic scandal on their website, which has about as many readers as their convoluted tell-all book. They claim I say Sylvia should leave with grace because I am in a plot with Roy Williams, Larry Fedora and the rest of the athletic administration to turn the attention away from men’s basketball and football.

Well, Earth to Jay and Mary. Did you bother reading the rest of the column past the truth that women’s basketball is likely to get hit by the NCAA harder than any other program? All the experts who have studied the NOA in its detailed entirety have come to the same conclusion. But there are two other major reasons I believe Hatchell’s tenure at UNC will end sooner than later. One is using her friends to speak out against not getting a contract extension from Bubba Cunningham, and the other is that women’s basketball spends and loses way too much money.

Hatchell has three more years left on her lucrative long-term deal, foolishly given to her by Dick Baddour on his way out the door as AD. And she is in the cross hairs of the NCAA probe, much more so than Williams and Fedora, despite what Jay and Mary would have you believe. She does not deserve, or frankly need, an extension right now, and should have worked behind the scenes trying to convince Bubba otherwise. And if she failed, she still could have gone out with grace.

There is no way any program will be allowed to lose $2.5 million moving forward. That is fiscally irresponsible, and Cunningham’s job is to fix it. Hatchell’s program also has the highest cost-per-athlete among all woman sports. Taking the fight public and any NCAA sanctions will only hasten her departure.

Jay and Mary believe there was an 18-year covert scheme to keep athletes eligible here, and in propagating that ridiculous theory continue to demonstrate how little they know about major Division 1 athletics, and a minute percentage of underprepared recruits that every school admits to stay competitive. Did Carolina cross some lines that it will pay dearly for when the NCAA metes out penalties? Yes. But is it as widespread and anywhere close to the story they have spun that has done major damage to a great university’s brand and reputation? It’s not about the truth anymore for them. It’s far more about winning their argument.

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