Spot the themes:

• Stewart Mandel, Fox Sports, “Why North Carolina’s titles, wins, might be safe NCAA punishment”

Attempting to predict penalties in an NCAA investigation is only slightly less futile than trying to pick an NCAA tournament bracket pool. The Committee on Infractions is notoriously inconsistent from one case to the next.

But that’s particularly true when it comes to the much-chronicled North Carolina academic scandal, even after Thursday’s release of the NCAA’s notice of allegations. That’s because we’ve never seen a case remotely like this one, involving an 18-year-long academic ruse in the school’s African and Afro-American Studies department.

Given the gravity of the charges – five likely Level 1 allegations (the most serious in the NCAA’s new penalty structure), and the use of sinister phrases like institutional control and unethical conduct – it’s a safe bet the committee will come down hard against UNC. But it might not entail the traditional types of sanctions – vacated wins, removal of banners – which those following the story have long anticipated. Whereas most NCAA infractions cases are sport-specific, this 55-page notice appears carefully constructed NOT to single out cash cow sports football and men’s basketball. The “special arrangements” at the center of the case benefited athletes throughout the department.

How does the committee appropriately punish an entire athletic department for nine years of violations? (The NCAA’s allegations span 2002-11). I can barely attempt to hazard a guess.

• Andy Staples, Sports Illustrated, “UNC’s Notice of Allegations brings up problematic state of the NCAA model”

No one knows what will happen to North Carolina’s athletic department. The late Jerry Tarkanian might have suggested that the Committee on Infractions will get so mad at the Tar Heels men’s basketball team that it will decimate the football team. Or the COI could spread the pain evenly across all the affected sports, which also include the excellent women’s basketball and women’s soccer programs. Or it could administer a light wrist slap while using very mean words in its public report. All of this is on the table, and if anyone tells you they know what the COI will do, that person is lying.

And:

So, what do the members of the COI do with North Carolina? Do they protect the NCAA Collegiate Model at the expense of people who had nothing to do with the academic fraud? Or do they show mercy on future Tar Heels while offering yet another example that the NCAA doesn’t care about academics enough to take any meaningful action?

Such is the state of the NCAA Collegiate Model in 2015. No matter what path the COI chooses, the NCAA will lose.

• Mike DeCourcy, The Sporting News, “NCAA gets ‘A’ for building case, but punishing UNC doomed to fail”

If you anticipated the NCAA’s arrival into the Carolina carnage would somehow bring order, luminance and justice, your optimism had no basis in precedent. The organization cannot fix what is broken here. Some of those alleged to have acted improperly are beyond its jurisdiction and much of the objectionable conduct UNC already has acknowledged is beyond the NCAA’s purview.

And:

In advance of Thursday’s release, there had been shouting for years about pulling down championship banners and vacating victories. It’s a hollow punishment though. It’s not enough to address what was allowed to go wrong at UNC, and neither is it entirely on point.

Carolina has been allowed to proceed rather gingerly through this disaster: by its accreditation board, by its board of governors, by the initial NCAA investigation in totally missing the scope of the academic malfeasance. Perhaps that why so many want the NCAA to punish the Tar Heels with extreme prejudice.

But asking the NCAA to manage the most essential elements of these academic transgressions still feels a little like the Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings board being asked to fix what is artistically dysfunctional in a dud like “Aloha.”

• Mike Rutherford, SB Nation, “North Carolina academic scandal will end quietly, just like everyone wanted”

The NCAA’s 59-page NOA (featuring a 732-page list of exhibits) is predictably dense and sheds little light as to what exact punishments may soon be tossed in the direction of Chapel Hill. You’re more than welcome to read through it all yourself, but what isn’t in the NOA is far more important than anything you’ll see during that six-hour(?) adventure.

Even though “academic” and “fraud” have combined to be the headlining two-word phrase of this “scandal,” the NCAA declined to investigate the allegation that over a span of 18 years, 3,100 students (47 percent of which were athletes) at UNC took advantage of African-American Studies courses. Those courses, according to the allegations, allowed the students to receive quality grades without having to show up for class, turn in papers or take tests.

The reason? This was a scam that all students benefited from, not just the athletes enrolled in the classes. There was also significant evidence that the students enrolled in these classes at least had to turn in something before being awarded a grade. Regardless of what the content of the turned in paper was, the fact that actual work had to be done makes it extremely difficult to prove academic fraud, and thus, the NCAA chose not to head down that road. So instead of academic fraud, the NCAA has chosen to describe what took place as “impermissible benefits to student-athletes that were not generally available to the student body.”

The other major takeaway from the NOA is that there is zero mention of any wrongdoing by any specific athlete or coach from the UNC men’s basketball or football programs. The name Roy Williams appears just once in the entire document, and that’s only as a mention that he was interviewed by the NCAA.

If the NCAA was going to go after North Carolina wins or titles, it would likely have needed to make accusations that one of the Tar Heel teams over the last 18 years was playing with a specific player or specific players who should have been ineligible. There is none of that in the NOA, and now, 24 hours later, UNC is reportedly close to finalizing a contract extension for Williams. It’s hard to see that as a coincidence.