Storrs - One by one they marched in almost lockstep precision, illustrating the unanimity of their purpose. This was Saturday at Gampel Pavilion. Halftime of the Georgetown-UConn women's game, a ceremony honoring all the scholar-athletes at UConn who achieved at least a 3.0 grade point average in the spring or fall semesters.

And then at the end, public address announcer John Tuite told the crowd that 13 teams earned a grade point average of at least 3.0, reiterating what anyone who pays attention should know by now:

UConn is a damn good school.

Where the kids who represent the place on the fields and floors achieve off them, too, honoring their scholarships and the responsibilities that come with them.

Where the coaches - most of them, anyway - recognize and respect the academic particulars of their programs.

And that's why anybody with an affinity for UConn should be nauseated by the pathetic excuses surfacing for the men's basketball program, the only one on campus that went three years neglecting academics.

This includes the lame letter to UConn fans that president Susan Herbst wrote the other day, bemoaning the unfairness of the possible NCAA tournament ban in 2013. As if this group of players is being sentenced to Leavenworth and not back to class to continue its free education.

I'm sick of it. Sick of it all. It's a charade.

Note to all the enablers: Coach Jim Calhoun just didn't give a damn whether his kids went to class. Period. He bears the responsibility for next season's issues.

And yet the conga line of excuses grow, now to include all the burgeoning dime store academicians who are sudden experts on the Academic Progress Rate. The misinformation that has festered into fact about the APR has been staggering in recent days.

It's not that difficult. The APR measures retention and eligibility. Keep them in school and keep them eligible. No penalty for leaving for the NBA. Even if they leave school, the penalty isn't as severe if they remain eligible.

You know what that means?

Go to class and take advantage of the academic support programs on campus.

All the other programs on campus seem to grasp that.

But for three straight years, UConn's APR number fell below the NCAA's baseline.

But the APR's application changed! It's not fair!

Really?

Really?

Let me ask this: How come all these "rule changes," which have been hilariously magnified into a greater affront to society than Apartheid, aren't an issue for football, where the coaches must manage five times as many scholarship athletes? How come they're not an issue for women's basketball, five of whose players joined in Saturday's ceremony?

I asked women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma after Saturday's game about his program's academic success. Here are snippets from this answer:

"We try to find the best players who are good students, asking, 'are they willing to work at it?'

"Sometimes," he said, "you bring in average students who do average work or a little above. ... There's competition on the team academically. Three of our coaches draft teams. Every week, they check on what's going on with those kids. We make it real important. ? I take none of the credit. It's (associate coach) Chris (Dailey), (assistant) Shea (Ralph) and (assistant) Marisa (Moseley).

"I try to run it like a Catholic high school program," he said. "If you go to class, you get rewarded. If you don't, you get punished. ? It's not like they're perfect. They don't go to every class. They do what kids do. But they know at the end of the day, they're going to be held accountable."

Read that again.

Still want to make excuses for the men's basketball program?

Stop it.

This was a three-year problem. They got caught. Now they pay. It is Calhoun's responsibility. Period. And if he's not going to step up and accept punishment, the kids are the collateral damage.

It's certainly a positive step that men's basketball's APR scores have improved.

Now they're doing what every other program is doing.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm tired - beyond tired - of how men's basketball has sullied UConn's good name. It's one of the best public universities in the country. And all the national media knows is the story du jour of UConn begging the NCAA to have mercy on its most high-profile program.

It's an insult to every kid and coach who made Saturday's halftime ceremony possible.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.