After almost a year of keeping its collective fingers crossed, the Michigan men's basketball team is in the clear.
According to reports in the Detroit Free Press and The Ann Arbor News, the University's athletic department has concluded its in-house investigation and says that no team member received money from a booster or professional agent to acquire new automobiles.
The investigation also said that none of the team's coaches offered any recruiting benefits to help the players obtain automobiles.
The investigation stems from an incident last year when Maurice Taylor crashed his 1996 Ford Explorer Limited at 5 a.m. on US-23 last Feb. 17.
Taylor, along with teammates Robert Traylor, Louis Bullock, Ron Oliver and Willie Mitchell, were lucky to survive, let alone avoid any major injuries, when he fell asleep at the wheel while returning from a party in Detroit.
Then Flint Northern senior Mateen Cleaves, who was on a recruiting trip to Ann Arbor, was also in the car.
The investigation was conducted at the urging of the NCAA enforcement staff, which received the University's report on Tuesday.
Immediately following the accident, Michigan admitted to violating an NCAA rule which forbids taking a recruit more than 30 miles from campus. Michigan stopped recruiting Cleaves, who ultimately signed with Michigan State.