DALLAS - Some two years after the game actually took place, the Fort Worth Dunbar Wildcats today were named the 2006 state basketball champs.

It comes at the expense of the former champions, the South Oak Cliff Golden Bears, who officially forfeited the crown after a News 8 investigation.

DISD officials actually announced that South Oak Cliff would forfeit its 2006 crown back in January.

But due to a series of miscommunications, only today did the state's regulatory body, the University Inter-Scholastic League, make it official.

The 2006 4-A state basketball crown stripped from South Oak Cliff was awarded to the team they beat in the finals that year - the Fort Worth Dunbar Wildcats.

The move comes after a News 8 investigation into allegations of grade changing of one of the team's star players - an athlete who should have been declared ineligible to play.

WFAA-TV

South Oak Cliff Golden Bears players hold up their 2005-2006 basketball championship trophy.

The athlete was failing one course, then was mysteriously moved out of that class by the principal and the team's head coach.

DISD followed the News 8 revelations with its own investigation and verified that state eligibility rules had been violated, then immediately announced the forfeiture of the 2006 crown.

That was last January.

The UIL recently told News 8 it never got official notification from the district.

They are all now on the same page and Fort Worth Dunbar has been awarded the crown.

We are awaiting a response from Dunbar.

Thus far, no word and no official response from South Oak Cliff head basketball coach, James Mays, who just days ago called our report false and said the crown would not be stripped.

DISD officials are now investigating allegations that improper grade changing took place during the 2005 state championship season at South Oak Cliff as well.

There is no word on the status of that investigation.

E-mail bshipp@wfaa.com.