CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams said Friday night it’s a “very sad time” at the school after an investigation found widespread academic fraud and adds that his program “thought we were doing the right thing.”

After his team’s exhibition victory, Williams spoke for the first time in response to a report released Wednesday that outlined how fraud ran unchecked in the formerly named African and Afro-American Studies (AFAM) department for nearly two decades. It involved more than 3,100 students — about half were athletes — taking sham classes and earning artificially high grades, while poor oversight allowed the problem to worsen.

Williams said he was “dumbfounded” by the details in the report and said UNC “made some mistakes for a long time” that damaged the school’s reputation and led the NCAA to reopen its probe into academic misconduct here.

“We’ve made a lot of moves,” he said. “A lot of procedures have been put in place, a lot of people have lost their jobs. And I’ll always be sad about the image we have right now around the country. We’ve had one of the greatest images that you can possibly have.”