Jun 06, 2014 01:01 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Rashad McCants, a former University of North Carolina (UNC) basketball player, has admitted to not writing papers and hardly attending class while he was a student.

McCants' admission is set to air on ESPN's "Outside the Lines" (OTL) Friday at 3 p.m. ET. In an article published ahead of the interview, McCants told OTL tutors would write papers for him and some of his Tar Heels teammates.

CLICK HERE to see a clip from the OTL piece.

During the 2004-2005 season, in which the Tar Heels finished 33-4 and won the National Championship, McCants was the team's second leading scorer. That team also produced four first round picks in the 2005 NBA Draft.

McCants said he would have been ruled academically ineligible for that season if he did not receive the help. Ironically enough, the "paper classes" helped him get placed on UNC - Chapel Hill's Dean's List for the 2005 academic year, though he admitted not going to any of his four classes.

His admission fuels the case being made former UNC reading specialist Mary Willingham, who first brought forward the allegations. She claimed the school provided these paper classes within the African American Studies Department (AFAM) for student-athletes because they only required one paper and zero class participation. She even provided ESPN with a sample term paper, which was plagiarized and extremely short but had an "A" marked on it.

McCants also told OTL that longtime basketball coach Roy Williams knew of the paper classes but said nothing.

"It is disappointing any time a student is dissatisfied with his or her experience. I welcome the opportunity to speak with Rashad McCants about returning to UNC to continue his academic career - just as we have welcomed many former student-athletes interested in completing their degrees," UNC athletic director said in a statement responding to the OTL report. "I have gotten to know some of Mr. McCants' teammates, and I know that claims about their academic experience have affected them deeply. They are adamant that they had a different experience at UNC-Chapel Hill than has been portrayed by Mr. McCants and others."

The Raleigh News and Observer first reported in Dec. 2012 on an investigation into UNC - Chapel Hill's AFAM Department for hosting fraudulent courses. The UNC internal investigation found that, from 2007 to 2011, the AFAM Department hosted 54 that either met on rare occasion or not at all. What's more is the department's director was later indicted for accepting payment from the school while approving these false courses.

Willingham resigned from her position as a reading specialist at UNC, but denied she was forced out after being dubbed the "whistleblower" of the school's academic scandal. From her own investigation, she told CNN in Jan. she found that 60 percent of UNC's football and basketball players from 2004 to 2012 were reading at a fourth- to eighth-grade level. She also said 10 percent were not reaching a third-grade level and that she even encountered players who were illiterate.

The school met Willingham's probe by denying it completely and even launched their own review that they claimed proved her wrong.

Watch ESPN at 3 p.m. ET to see the full piece on McCants' admission, plus a roundtable discussion to follow.

McCants told OTL he came forward because "It's time for everybody to really just be accountable."

"It's about my kids, about your kids. It's about their kids. It's about knowing the education that I received and knowing that something needs to change," he said. "This has nothing to do with the Carolina fans or the Carolina program. It has everything to do with the system, and Carolina just so happened to be a part of the system and they participated in the system, so in retrospect, you have to look at it and say, 'Hey, you know what you did wrong.'"

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