Valvano Says Some Former Players Never Should Have Been in College

NEW YORK — Jim Valvano acknowledged Friday that he recruited basketball players for North Carolina State who had no business being at the university.

Valvano, taping an appearance on NBC’s “Later With Bob Costas” was asked if his team had players who should not have been admitted to the school.

“A lot of them,” Valvano said in a partial transcript released Friday. “Now you . . . know there’s that judgment again. There are some kids who you would look at on the piece of paper and say ‘shouldn’t have come’ who have graduated. There are others who you said ‘that looks petty good’ who haven’t. . . . But the answer to your question, generally speaking, is yes.”

Valvano was asked if his team had some players “who turned out had no intention of being students.”

“Right,” Valvano said. “The rules were bent to the point where that if you look at it, you say that young man is not interested in graduation.

“We must do better,” Valvano said, emphasizing that no grades were changed. “There’s no question. I admit all those things.”