Antelope Valley Hoops Plays on as ‘Team Without a School’
The front of the players jerseys still read “UAV” as they took the court Sunday afternoon, but the connection between the University of Antelope Valley basketball teams and the institution had all but elapsed.
“They are on an island,” Andre Harrell, the University of Antelope Valley’s sports information director, said. “They are a team without a school—and that is the tragedy of it.”
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The hoops postseason voyage of the failed NAIA school—which has inspired national attention and a five-figure GoFundMe campaign—has now veered into truly unchartered territory: Can a college athletic program continue to compete for an institution that ceases to exist?
At the same time UAV’s men’s basketball team was playing its California Pacific Conference tournament semifinal game Sunday—a 73-55 victory over University of California, Merced—the school’s leadership, including interim president Tim Campagna, was meeting with league officials to sort through the technicalities of that very question.
“We are still working with state agencies and accrediting agencies to try and keep these guys active,” Campagna told Sportico in a telephone interview.
And not just the guys: a few hours after the men’s team won Sunday afternoon—earning a spot in the Cal Pac championship game Monday night—UAV’s women’s team also advanced to its conference title game, which will take place Tuesday.
Cal Pac commissioner Don Ott, in an email, expressed confidence that both teams would be eligible to play in the NAIA tournament later this month, even after the school will have officially ceased all operations. Ott said there is “precedent” for granting UAV’s schoolless hoopers waivers, describing it as “likely a formality, but an important one.” (Ott did not respond to a follow up email asking what that precedent was.)
Antelope Valley’s basketball has been a rare source of school pride this year for an institution that has become the poster child for what ails the for-profit higher education system.
UAV was acquired in 2022 by Genius Group, a Singapore-based education technology conglomerate, which has seen its NYSE American stock price crater by 90% over the last six months, trading at $0.33/share at the close of Friday.
Genius Group CEO Roger J. Hamilton did not respond to a request for comment.
While there had been talk that UAV could eke out some kind of existence through the remainder of the academic year, the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education ended those hopes last week, when it issued an emergency decision that the school cease all of its operations by close of business Friday, March 8. Campagna confirmed that the school has a hearing Wednesday with state regulators, in which it will continue pressing its effort to maintain the academic eligibility of basketball players, among larger student body concerns.
On Friday night, UAV officially informed staff and faculty that it would be closing by the end of the week, leaving many of its several hundred students (including a number of its basketball players) scrambling to figure out where they will live and how they will finish their academic credits. The unsigned email announcement landed in staff and faculty inboxes just as the men’s and women’s basketball teams were being celebrated for their league regular season titles at the annual Cal Pac banquet.
“It has been a whirlwind,” said Jordan Mast, UAV men’s basketball coach, in a phone interview Sunday prior to his team’s semifinals victory. Beyond game preparations, Mast has been pressed to figure out where his athletes will live, now that the school has been expelled from its own campus after failing to pay for its building leases since October.
Last week, Mast launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money so both his and the women’s basketball teams could afford their post-season competition. As of Sunday night, the fundraiser had netted nearly $47,000, thanks in part to an $18,000 anonymous donation that Mast said came from Chegg, Inc., the homework technology company.
Originally, Mast had set the GoFundMe’s goal for $40,000, thinking that amount would be a more than enough money to cover expenses, but increased it after the target was reached within days. While expressing gratitude for the outpouring of support, Mast acknowledged that it’s been especially challenging to budget for the unexpected costs of captaining a ship without a port.
For example, with UAV’s closing, the basketball teams lost access to the school vans, forcing Mast to pay $2,000 to rent vehicles last minute so the teams could commute the four-hour trek from Lancaster, Calif., where UAV is based, to the city of Merced, where the Cal Pac tourney is held.
Though Antelope Valley’s downfall had been telegraphed for much of the last year, its shutdown still seemed to come out of nowhere. The school was originally put on probation by its regional accreditor in August, after being determined to lack sufficient financial and leadership stability. UAV’s precarious state turned increasingly unstable in recent months, after Genius Group stopped making good on rental payments to Antelope Valley’s original owners, football player-turned-firefighter Marco Johnson and his wife Sandra.
The Johnsons, who sold the school they founded for $30 million in stock and cash, still own the campus’ facilities, which they had been leasing back to Genius Group after the acquisition. Last month, the Johnsons commenced eviction litigation against UAV and Genius Group, leading the parties to enter a stipulated judgment that the school would vacate the properties by Feb. 29.
With that in mind, there’s an even more daunting challenge for Mast than travel logistics: what to do with his players for the three-week interval between when the conference tournament ends and the NAIA championships begin. Can his players return to their dorm rooms after Tuesday?
While the Johnsons have pledged to do whatever it takes to keep students housed encamps, Mast said there are unresolved concerns about securing and insuring the dorms and other school facilities, now that Genius Group is off the lease. There’s also an ongoing legal dispute between the Johnsons and Genius Group over physical property in the school buildings. Mast said that as his team was leaving campus Friday on its way to Merced, police had arrived on scene.
In an emailed statement, the Johnsons harshly put the blame squarely Genius Group, saying the company “seems to be systematically engaged in destroying a well-respected, prosperous, and successful academic institution.”
Of Hamilton, Genius Group’s CEO, the Johnsons said, “Our one and only regret is that we took this man at his word; he told us and others—staff, students, our Board of Trustees, respected city leaders, respected politicians, and accrediting agencies—that he planned to build and expand on our legacy of success, and all of them believed him.”
Harrell, however, said that he believes the Johnsons equally share in the responsibility for UAV’s demise, having failed to properly bet the buyer. Harrell recalled Marco Johnson, not so long ago, waxing ecstatic over Hamilton’s personal commitment to athletics and Genius Group’s purported plans to invest tens of millions of dollars into UAV’s facilities.
“Coaches and myself would sell this to kids,” Harrell said, “that this is an exciting time and that this is really going to happen. And the first thing the new group did was cut the [athletic] scholarships by 17 percent and they wouldn’t even grandfather the students that had been here.”
Antelope Valley’s nadir follows the closure last May of another NAIA school with a strong athletic tradition, Iowa Wesleyan, which was forced to shutter after being unable to pay off its $26 million loan to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Before then, Iowa Wesleyan’s men’s basketball team was able to complete a record-setting farewell season, finishing with the most single-season victories and longest-winning streak in school history.
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