Few basketball programs have benefited from recruiting players from Schofield and Lutheran more than George Washington. The Colonials are 24-1 this year and ranked No. 7 in the Associated Press poll. Two of the team's best players, Maureece Rice and Omar Williams, played at schools run by Schofield. The George Washington president, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, had a strong reaction to The Times article.

"I was embarrassed," he said.

Trachtenberg said that he planned to forward the article to the vice president, the admissions office and the athletic director.

Asked if having two players from Lutheran tainted the Colonials' season, Trachtenberg said: "Well, it's hardly good news. I wished they'd all gone to Andover and Horace Mann and finished first in their class. I'm curious how they're doing while they're here."

The athletic director, Jack Kvancz, refused comment. Coach Karl Hobbs said he never met any teachers or counselors while recruiting Williams and Rice, despite their academic struggles at the high schools they attended before Lutheran. He also refused to answer questions about whether he knew the school was unaccredited.

Hobbs defended Rice, a sophomore who will turn 22 in March, and Williams, a 24-year-old senior, by saying that when one talks to the players, it is obvious that they are educated young men.

Hobbs pointed to the lack of resources in inner-city schools. "I do think part of my responsibility as a coach is to offer opportunities to kids that have a burning desire to want to graduate and kids that have the character and the desire to want to succeed," he said.