Boxing must be grateful that college basketball's broken nose has stolen the spotlight from its own umpteenth "black eye." These allegations come on the heels of a ruling by a United States District judge striking down as racially biased the NCAA's Proposition 48, which requires certain minimum test scores (qualified by grade point average) in order for freshmen to be eligible for college athletics.

With the lid blown off of the academic dishonesty that everyone on the inside was already aware of, and with nothing to prevent a school from shrugging off any pretense of academic standards in its admission of "students" who might incidentally help its basketball team, college hoops sits on the verge of crisis. Change must happen, and it will.

Some have suggested an end to freshman athletic eligibility, a return to the good ol' days when freshmen spent their first years hitting the books and the practice courts. That would answer the Prop 48 question, but what of cheating?

Paying student-athletes might help. Eliminate basketball scholarships but pay the players. Then academics becomes a matter of remaining enrolled at the school, not meeting NCAA academic requirements. Maybe Courtney James would have written that paper if he knew a "D" would do, rather than a "B."

The stats would show lower GPAs for athletes, but at least they would be learning something. Maybe paying college athletes a salary goes against the spirit of college athletics, but at least then the smoke and mirrors would be raised.

It's not about the grades any more than an academic decathalon is about free throw shooting. Like all else, it is about dollars and cents.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be the best. All these colleges need to do is tell us to our face.

"The University of Minnesota, founded in the belief that all people are enriched by understanding, is dedicated to the advancement of learning and the search for truth; to the sharing of this knowledge through education for a diverse community; and to the application of this knowledge to benefit the people of the state, the nation, and the world."