If Approved, NCAA Plan Would Keep UConn Out Of March Madness

[BMoreX]

The NCAA is aiming to implement stricter academic standards, the final touches of the plan to be voted upon this week.

But NCAA President Mark Emmert dropped a bit of a bombshell in Washington on Monday, telling the Knight Commission on Interscholastic Athletics of a proposal that, if approved, would render UConn ineligible for the NCAA Tournament next March.

According to USA Today, Emmert said the NCAA Board of Directors will vote Friday on a plan to bar schools from the next tournament if their Academic Progress Rate is below 900. UConn's APR last spring was 893, and even though school officials say there was significant improvement since then, there would be no way for UConn to get to 900 for this year.

http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-...,3034043.story

[Xavier]

Couldn't read the story-- but do you know if those rules would apply right away, as in this year, or do you think they would let schools know about it and force the rule next year?

[xavierj]

Not gonna happen to UCONN. No way, no how. Just like the little slaps on the wrist they get for cheating, they will come away from this just fine.

[xupuck10]

here is a link to the story (http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-men/hc-uconn-apr-1025-20111024,0,3034043.story)

[dc_x]

St. Bona would also be ineligible....not that it would matter.

[muskiefan82]

I wonder if the conferences would let a team that doesn't meet the APR even compete in the conference tournament if this becomes a rule. Can't have a winner that can't go - especially in the smaller conferences.

[xubrew]

I'm almost certain that it will be approved, and that it will be phased in over the next two years.

My problem is that the NCAA leadership fails to see the big picture because they're looking at everything through a limited lense.

They see that UConn's grad rate is less than 30 percent. So, they figure that the APR needs to be raised. What's funny is that the APR at 925 was supposed to produce a grade rate of above 50% when it was originally instituted. Anyone with a brain could tell that in a sport like basketball, that was a gross miscalculation.

Here is why.

The graduation rate is just that. It measures how many people graduate within six years of enrolling as a full time student. At a basketball program like UConn's, you could have players in good academic standing (by that I mean on pace to graduate in six years) who do not graduate because they pursue professional careers. That's one variable. the other variable is that you have players who are in good academic standing, but because the level of play is so high they never see the floor. We've seen this at Xavier. They want to transfer to a place where they can play.

Both incidents hurt your freshman cohort rate. Neither hurts your APR if the students have a 2.6 when they transfer, or are eligible to return if they don't. With both of those variables working against you, it's understandable how your APR could be solid (927, which up until recently was calculated to be good enough), and you're grad rate be low.

That's why UConn's APR is high, and their grad rate is low. So, what's the NCAA's response to this?? We need to raise the APR!!! That's like taking cough medicine to cure the flu.

Another thing that no one considers is that the APR you're looking at is not what is current. UConn's APR for this past single season in basketball will come out as being way higher than 927. It was 927 over a year ago. As obvious as this is, no one seems to grasp it. Everyone who played for UConn in the NCAA Tournament was eligible to play. It was because of transfers and players leaving two years ago that lowered the APR. In a sense, with this new legislation, the team that lowered the APR would have been okay to play, and the current guys, who will actually play a role in raising it, would have been ineligible.


I'm rambling, but I'm not even to the #1 reason why this legislation sucks. They look at UConn, and think things need to change. What they fail to see is the Ohio Valleys, and the MACs and the SWACs and the Southlands and those smaller programs who don't have the resources. UConn will be fine. They'll hire someone, or several someones, to oversee academic support and play with the numbers and get them to where they need to be. There are several ways to "cheat" the system.

Who gets hurt are the schools without those resources. It's not UConn that can't play in the NCAAs. It's Jacksonville State and Louisiana Monroe and the SWAC. They might have one advisor, part time, for their entire athletic department. They don't have an entire center with a staff of fifty tutors who only work with the student athletes. They don't have an Eligibility Specialist (that is an actual title), to tinker with the APR. What's messed up is that schools with higher grad rates have poorer APRs becasue they don't have someone who's entire profession is to exploit loopholes such as having players sign one day contracts, and then declaring them "professionals" and therefore exempt from counting against the APR.

I could write a book, but the NCAA doesn't see any of that. Raising the APR, in the grand scheme of things, accomplishes nothing. If anything, it makes things worse. It is well intended, but it is illogical. Mark Emmert has never worked in athletic department. Neither have many on the board of directors. They're former presidents. How many university presidents have ever worked in athletics?? It's like an Ivy League graduate who gets a job with John Deer and is put in charge of all the factories. They've never been in a factory, or talked to many people who have, yet they're making all kinds of policies.

"Lets raise the APR!!" Wow. How brilliant. Anyone reading this could have come up with that solution...and it's not really a solution. In theory, you could have an APR of 1000, and a grade rate of zero.

[xubrew]

I wonder if the conferences would let a team that doesn't meet the APR even compete in the conference tournament if this becomes a rule. Can't have a winner that can't go - especially in the smaller conferences.

Very unlikely that the smaller conferences would do that. If a team that is ineligible for the NCAA wins a conference championship, the conference forfeits their automatic bid....and the revenue that comes with it.

[xubrew]

To the surprise of no one, this has been approved....

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/resources/latest+news/2011/october/di+board+of+directors+adopt+changes+to+academic+an d+student-athlete+welfare

[Cheesehead]

Huggins will be in more trouble then.