The academic scandal at the University of North Carolina (UNC) - Chapel Hill is troubling Larry Brown, especially about his former Tar Heels basketball coach Dean Smith.

In his extensive basketball coaching career, Brown never led his alma mater, but he played point guard for the Tar Heels early in Smith's tenure. The legendary UNC coach led the men's basketball team from 1961 to 1997, winning two National Championships and 13 ACC Tournament titles.

Brown is now the head basketball coach at Southern Methodist University, but has coached t several other schools and on NBA teams as well. After his team's warm-ups on Thursday, he spoke with ESPN about the Kenneth Wainstein Report.

"Absolutely I'm worried about it," Brown said. "What's troubling me the most is that some of that stuff dates back to coach [Dean] Smith, and we all know the character of that man."

Wainstein found in his investigation that more than 3,100 UNC - Chapel Hill students were taking false classes, half of whom being student-athletes. These "paper classes" were being held in the school's African and Afro-American Studies department for nearly two decades.

Wainstein's report also found that Tar Heel football and basketball coaches in that timespan likely did not know their athletes were taking fraudulent classes and that it was academic advisers who directed students toward them. Still, there are several critics who would say otherwise.

"My daughter took some of those classes," Brown said. "If you look around, there's not a school in the country that doesn't have classes like that. How many kids are taking online classes these days? That's not an excuse. I'm just saying there are classes like that that are legitimate."

Roy Williams, UNC's current men's basketball coach and once a assistant of Smith's, expressed a similar sentiment to Brown, stating he knew his reputation would take a hit.

"I'm 64, so I'm not close to being ready to quit," Williams told ESPN last month, "but you also think, 'God, I don't want this to be what people remember about me.'"