UNC deserves justice over 2022 March Madness loss

Bombastic Brutus Staff Complainer

After last year’s crushing defeat in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, I found myself a bit dazed, confused and just generally lost. It just didn’t make sense. It seemed as if God himself was wearing Tar Heel blue; I mean, we beat Duke! An NCAA win appeared to be not only the school’s destiny, but my own; the self-worth I attached to this game was astronomical, and suddenly, I was plummeting back to Earth. The Instagram post with my clever manipulation of the GDTBATH slogan would have to remain in my drafts. My bracket was broken and my spirit in shambles.

I began doing my research and looked into this “Kansas University.” I studied for hours, and then there it was, right before me on the Google profile — “Acceptance Rate: 92.5%.”

My mind was racing. That was more than four times the rate of Chapel Hill’s 20.4% acceptance rate –– a number seared into my mind to remind people from out of town and friends back home. I looked into NCAA bylaws, and, to my astounding horror, I found zero regulations about schools’ acceptance rates. The Division I status of the university was only related to the size, not our academic superiority or reputation.

My questions about life deepened, the challenges to my very existence more ingrained. How could a benevolent and virtuous God allow for such an injustice? Where was the outrage?

After almost a year of sleepless nights and agitation, I have decided to put my tar-foot down. Clearly this is my anointed purpose, that divine right which all UNC students come to realize in their time at this holy — but legally, irreligious — institution.

Today I begin my campaign for the establishment of a new basketball tournament based solely on admission rates, with a maximum threshold of 47.4%. It is unfair for a university as esteemed as ours, with student athletes who might be too busy studying to practice basketball, to be judged on the same standards as other so-called “schools.”

My proposal is as follows:

In this form, UNC will finally receive the roses they deserve; no longer will we have to compete against schools with high acceptance rates, which is in essence a form of “academic doping” and cheating.

Why 47.4%? This number reflects an academic integrity meticulously constructed to represent the best of the best. Coincidentally, the figure would leave out our bitter rivals at NC State who are “technically” having a superior basketball season compared to us. But this only goes to prove the point at hand: clearly the high focus on athletics — that has recently seen the school edge out UNC in most sports — is because of their lesser status as an academic institution, which the acceptance rate proves beyond a doubt. Moreover, it cannot be ruled out that NC State’s emphasis on STEM has not given them an unfair advantage in a game that is defined by angles and percentages.

Chapel Hill should also be retroactively awarded the 2022 Championship and receive a lengthy apology from the NCAA. This format can not only do justice to the men’s basketball team, but also the women’s team and all of the organized sports at the University.

As Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. It is time to make things right before UNC is further deprived of the highminded, Carolina blue world order. I know the journey ahead will be difficult, but it is one I am willing to take on. Perhaps it is true that God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers, and UNC is ready to go to war.