UNC’s Sylvia Hatchell attempts to keep calm amid storm surrounding her program

After the last remaining member of the best recruiting class in school history transferred, and after her program found itself in the crosshairs of an NCAA investigation, and after a former player publicly decried her lack of a contract extension, Sylvia Hatchell says, against all odds, all will be OK.

In fact Hatchell, who’s approaching her 30th season as the women’s basketball coach at North Carolina, said “We’re going to be more than OK.”

She was speaking at Wednesday’s annual ACC women’s basketball media day. It’s the first time she’s spoken in a setting like this one, with microphones and cameras in front of her, since her program appeared to be imploding.

Despite what it looks like, the program is not imploding. At least not according to the woman who has led it since 1986.

“You remember the Apollo flight, 13, I guess, when people thought it was going to be a disaster?” Hatchell said. “And the astronauts, one of them, said, ‘No, this will be our finest hour?’

“OK, this will be our finest hour. So I’m great, and I’m fine. I love practice every day. These kids are great. We’ve got what it takes.”

Between the end of last season and the beginning of this one, it’s been one thing after another for UNC’s women’s basketball program and Hatchell.

A lot of the program’s issues have been related to UNC’s ongoing NCAA investigation. The Notice of Allegations (NOA) that UNC received from the NCAA targeted Hatchell’s program in a different way than the others.

And that’s because it targets Jan Boxill, the former UNC women’s basketball academic counselor who was shown to provide illegal help to former players. Boxill is the only individual associated with a team – coach, player, support personnel – to be specifically charged with a violation in the NOA.

“I can’t talk about the NCAA,” Hatchell said when asked about it, “because I really don’t know anything about it. ... All I know is that this is a great time for me. People think I’m (having) a rough time, all this stuff. This is a great time.”

The release of the NOA, to which UNC’s response has been delayed in part because it found previously undiscovered wrongdoing related to Boxill, cast so much of a pall around Hatchell’s program that few reacted with surprise when the last remaining members of a gifted sophomore class decided to transfer.

Two years ago, that four-player class, led by Diamond DeShields, the top high school prospect in her class, arrived in Chapel Hill with national championship aspirations. Now not a single member of that class remains.

DeShields transferred after her freshman season, when Hatchell sat out while receiving treatment for leukemia. And after last season, Jessica Washington, Allisha Gray and Stephanie Mavunga, the other members of the DeShields class, decided to transfer, leaving Hatchell with eight scholarship players – seven fewer than the NCAA limit for Division I women’s basketball teams.

Hatchell’s numbers are so thin that among the usual, more mundane questions asked Wednesday was directed to players Jamie Cherry and Xylina McDaniel. That question: Why didn’t you leave too?

“With me, I’m big on personal loyalty,” sophomore guard Cherry said. “And of course, I’ve been loyal to coach Hatchell since I was a freshman in high school. And I plan on sticking with her until I graduate. So leaving wasn’t even in my mind.”

Ditto for McDaniel, a senior forward who is UNC’s leading returning scorer.

“I’m real big on loyalty as well,” McDaniel said. “I’ve just lived by that my whole life. And no matter what coach Hatchell has gone through or what the team has gone through, I’m not going to leave. I would never leave.”

Several of Hatchell’s former players have expressed their loyalty too. Hatchell said she often hears from many of them.

“They’re like my children,” she said. One of her former players, Meghan Austin, now a coach herself, wrote a scathing editorial in The News & Observer in Hatchell’s support.

In her editorial, Austin wrote that Hatchell and the women’s basketball program had become a scapegoat amid the larger NCAA investigation into the long-running scheme of bogus no-show African- and Afro-American Studies courses. Austin suggested that women’s basketball was being sacrificed to protect men’s basketball and football, both of which had more enrollments in the suspect courses.

“They’ve been all very, very loyal, and (would be more outspoken) if I would let them loose,” Hatchell said. “And I’ve tried to control them a little bit and everything and (say), ‘We’re good, we’re good – everything’s great.’ But they have come running to my defense, trust me.”

Hatchell wouldn’t say whether she agreed that her program had been made a scapegoat. She also didn’t have much to say about her thoughts on her contract situation, another topic Austin wrote about in her editorial.

UNC in the spring announced the extensions of three coaches, including men’s basketball coach Roy Williams. Hatchell’s contract expires in 2018, which is when Williams’ was also due to expire before his extension.

“I’m not worried,” Hatchell said. “I mean, look at my history. … We’ve won a lot of championships and we’ve got some more in front of us that we’re going to win.”

Hatchell led UNC to a national championship in 1994. Her teams have won eight ACC tournament championships, none since 2008.

That class she brought in two years ago, the one with DeShields and Gray, was supposed to restore some of the luster to her program amid recent good, but not great, seasons. That was the plan, anyway, before the NCAA case erupted and those four players transferred.

Now Hatchell has about half of a full scholarship team. She has filled out her roster with six walk-ons. Recruiting, has been better than expected, and she hopes to sign a seven-player class soon.

But no one knows what to expect out of this season, one that during the summer seemed over before it began.

It hasn’t seemed that way to Hatchell.

“The past is behind us,” she said when asked if she has a better appreciation for real-life adversity after her fight against cancer. “And it’s not leukemia. And I see it as an opportunity to show everybody.”

This story was originally published October 21, 2015 at 8:27 PM with the headline "UNC’s Sylvia Hatchell attempts to keep calm amid storm surrounding her program."