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Yahoo! Sports writer and grand arbiter of what constitutes hazing Pat Forde who is at ACC Media Day, noted that UNC guard Marcus Paige would be late to the event because he was taking an exam. In light of UNC's recent troubles this is apparently joke-worthy by a professional journalist.
UNC point guard Marcus Paige not at ACC media day this morning because he has an exam. Will be here later. Insert your own punch line.
— Pat Forde (@YahooForde) October 29, 2014
The problem with Forde's joke? Well, I'll let Inside Carolina explain.
@YahooForde Paige was named Academic All-America in 2014. AFAM issues ended in 2011. That the punch line you had in mind?
— InsideCarolina (@InsideCarolina) October 29, 2014
One of the issues with a school being involved with a scandal of this nature is said school becomes the punch line of an endless string of jokes. That's the territory now for UNC fans and unfortunately for the athletes who had nothing to do with the scandal. Brice Johnson answers dozens of Wainstein Report questions during his print media session today at ACC Media Days. The AFAM paper class schemed ended in 2011, well before Johnson even committed to play basketball at UNC. Yet, he pays the price and so does a player like Paige who, by all accounts, is one of the smartest players in college basketball right now and is widely held to be the best interviews you can get. Forde even acknowledges this after he's called out by Doug Gottlieb of all people. This is nothing but Forde grasping at low-hanging fruit which is probably more deserving of a punch line than Paige attending to his responsibilities as a student.
Note: There was originally sentence here that led to a quote. I meant to remove that sentence since the source was not comfortable with the information being publicized. It should not have appeared in the piece at all. My apologies.