The NCAA determined Friday morning there were no violations after a nearly three-and-a-half-year investigation into the University of North Carolina for alleged extra benefits provided to student athletes through "easy" courses in the schools African and Afro American Studies department.

The NCAA did hand out show causes to Deborah Crower and Jan Boxhill, the former was directly involved in the courses and the latter worked with the women's basketball program and was linked to Crowder.

But other than that, UNC is free and clear and this case is closed.

This is the result of an investigation that began on June 30, 2014, when the Wainstein Report was commissioned by UNC to take a deeper study into problems with a couple of classes in the African and Afro-American Studies department. The NCAA charged UNC with five Level 1 violations, including Lack of Institutional Control.

The NCAA said that AFAM student services manager Deborah Crowder and department head Julius Nyang’oro provided extra benefit to athletes by giving them preferential treatment in the courses from 2002-2011.

Also, Crowder and Nyang’oro were charged with not cooperating with the NCAA, Jan Boxhill was charged with providing extra benefits to women’s basketball players by getting them into the courses in question, and of course, Lack of Institutional Control.

It must be understood that the NCAA the rigor of the courses in question were not part of the NCAA’s investigation, and thus ensuing punishment. Instead, the focus was the extra benefits it says athletes received by arrangements that placed them in the courses in question.

It also must be understood that these findings are only from the investigation that began in 2014. UNC football was previously found guilty of violations in which penalties were rendered in March, 2012. Those sanctions, which included a bowl ban in 2012 and scholarship reductions for three seasons, which affected the recruiting classes of 2013-15.

That was an entirely different investigation, although it must be noted the NCAA looked into the AFAM courses in that investigation and deemed it an academic issue, not an athletic one.

The NCAA will hold a teleconference this morning, so stay with THI for more coverage on this.