ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The emotions were genuine, the anger and disappointment very real.

The University of Michigan, after years of investigations and allegations, came clean Thursday and admitted what had long been whispered about -- its men's basketball program was a cesspool during most of the 1990s, particularly during the high-profile era of the Fab Five.

Michigan athletic director Bill Martin couldn't hide his anger.(AP)

For a proud and proper school, this was total humiliation.

"There is no excuse for what happened," said school president Mary Sue Coleman. "It was wrong, plain and simple. This is a day of great shame for our university."

The school assessed some self-penalties and will now throw itself at the mercy of the NCAA infractions committee. While there is hope around here that further sanctions will not be assessed, that seems unlikely given the veritable slap on the wrist the school proposed, and the high-profile nature of the case.

But what the school lacked in the severity of its proposed penalties, it made up for in displaying meaningful embarrassment and hurt. There was no winking and nodding going on around Ann Arbor. Coleman spoke forcefully and with true pain.

Athletic director Bill Martin nearly became emotional when discussing the first act of the school's self-imposed sanctions -- calling a work crew to take down four commemorative banners from the Crisler Arena rafters.

"That was a dagger in my heart," said Martin. "To me, that was painful."

While it might have been painful for Michigan, it will cause joy, not pain, to programs throughout the Big Ten and the nation who lost to the mighty Wolverines back then but always suspected the program under Steve Fisher wasn't on the up and up.

Thursday, after years of shrugged shoulders and stalled investigation, Michigan admitted it cheated.

In an effort to make things right, it promised to forfeit 114 total victories, plus all championships captured between 1992-93 and 1995-99 when four players in question -- Chris Webber, Robert Traylor, Maurice Taylor and Louis Bullock -- played for the school. It will give back around $450,000 in tournament revenue earned during that period, place itself on two years of probation and declare itself ineligible for postseason play next spring.

The NCAA's infractions committee will look over the school's findings and, probably around February, decide whether to further sanction the program -- a move that seems likely.

There was no question who Martin holds responsible.

When asked if the four players were welcome back on campus, he bristled.

"I'm not going to send them a Thanksgiving turkey, if that's what you mean," he said.

As for Fisher, the former coach who was fired in the fall of 1997, Martin qualified a previous statement that he would welcome the current San Diego State coach back to campus.

"At first I stated I'd welcome him back to campus and I'd have a cup coffee with him," Martin said. "The second time I was asked, I said I'd have my general counsel with me. Today, I am not sure I'd invite him back."

Michigan is facing penalties while Fisher, who still denies he knew anything (no one around here privately thinks that's possible), goes scot-free.

"That's life," he said. "That's the way the system works."

Michigan was dealing with a lot Thursday, and trying to strike a delicate balance in the process. There were signs Martin wanted to lash out at Fisher and the players, and maybe even try to get the money back from them.

Webber has denied he took $280,000 from former booster Ed Martin, even though Martin, who used to run an illegal lottery at Detroit area Ford plants, has told federal authorities he gave the Sacramento Kings star that money.

That doesn't help. In the past, players who have broken NCAA rules have admitted the crime and expressed remorse. Marcus Camby even paid the University of Massachusetts back the money the school had to forfeit for his dealing with agents during the 1995-96 season.

That isn't going to happen with Webber, who is facing a federal charge of perjury surrounding this case, or probably any of these guys. Which is why AD Bill Martin still has some raw emotion.

But that anger has to be checked against the need for the program to retain ties to the still popular Fab Five. Just this fall, one of the Wolverines' highly touted recruits, Courtney Sims of Massachusetts, cited the legacy of the Fab Five as a reason for choosing Michigan.

"It's hard to paint this as a Fab Five incident, as the Fan Five era," said coach Tommy Amaker. "A lot of things go across the board. You have to take the good with the bad."

The "bad" for the program is if the NCAA decides to further penalize the Wolverines. It should, because as much as Thursday's humiliation hurts those here, there was very little actual punishment in the school's self-sanctions.

Taking down banners and rewriting record books isn't all you should do when you didn't earn those things in the first place. Giving back money that it didn't rightfully earn (or straight up stole) isn't either.

If you steal a car, is just giving it back a penalty?

"By our own admission, we didn't earn (the money)," said Bill Martin.

The two-year probation only matters if further rules are broken. And as disappointing as losing a postseason opportunity is for the Wolverines' three seniors, this team was not a favorite to make much March noise anyway.

"We implemented sanctions consistent with NCAA extra benefit cases," Martin said, although it is not simple to compare a case this big with any other.

What Michigan really did was play this smart. The NCAA almost always places further penalties on schools. In this high profile and high-magnitude case, it is almost certain to do so.

So, like bargaining for a used car, you don't make your first offer your final. You lowball it without insulting the other party and hope you meet in the middle.

Only time will tell if that means further postseason bans or future scholarship reductions or just an extension of the probation period.

Amaker says his team took the news as well as can be expected. The school believes all three of the program's verbal commitments remain solid. If nothing else, this gets Michigan toward the end of this long, long investigation.

"This is not the last page of this story, but it is the beginning of the last chapter," Martin said.

It is the last chapter of an ugly story that has forever tarnished a memorable team, a championship program and a usually proud school.