After years of damaging disclosures and disastrous PR, you’d think there’s no way UNC could make its grades-and-athletes scandal worse.

As George W. Bush would say, don’t misunderestimate them. They could make it worse by making Sylvia Hatchell the scapegoat and Roy Williams the escape ram.

A Page One story by the N&O’s Dan Kane and Andrew Carter suggests that’s about to happen. The story reported that, while both the men’s and women’s basketball programs are under investigation, Williams got a contract extension and Hatchell didn’t.

Nice.

Like many things in the world, it’s about sex and money. From the story:

“Men’s basketball and football are the money-making sports at UNC and other top Division I schools. Men’s basketball feeds the coffers of the NCAA. The organization collected nearly a billion dollars in revenue last year, USA Today reported, nearly all of it from the ‘March Madness’ tournament. The majority of the money goes back to the member schools.

“Women’s sports typically lose money, but universities are required under the federal anti-discrimination Title IX law to carry them if they want to have men’s programs.”

Who’d be surprised if athletics officials sacrificed the women to save the men?

Word is that UNC AD Bubba Cunningham didn’t want to extend either coach’s contract while the investigation was going on. But the Big Rams pressured him, and Bubba caved on Roy.

Already, women’s-sports advocates are calling foul. They see a “war on women’s coaches.”

It could get even worse for UNC. Note the N&O’s last paragraph: “Hatchell…has retained a prominent lawyer, Wade Smith of Raleigh….”

As Scooby Doo would say if he knew Wade Smith, “Ruh-roh.”