NCAA new academic standards - UConn barred from tourney?

[JasonEvans]

Along with the discussion about paying players a little bit, NCAA President Mark Emmert dropped this little bombshell yesterday.

He is proposing that schools that do not have a APR (Academic Progress Rate) of at least 900 be barred from the 2012 NCAA tourney. He says that if schools cannot get their APR to 930 by 2013, they would be barred from the tourney that year.

The most obvious example of a school that would fall victim to this is UConn, which featured a wondrous APR of 893 last year. It was UConn's low APR that led to the program being stripped of two scholarships, a situation that would cause problems for most coaches. Of course, we all know that Jim Calhoun recently got around the problem by taking a scholarship away from one of his needy but less talented players so he could give it to a stud recruit. But, this new measure would put teeth into the APR standards that would affect even a low-life, slimeball, pathetic excuse for a human like Jim Calhoun.

Calhoun might actually be forced to educate his players... oh the humanity!

By the way, for anyone wondering, Duke would not have to worry very much about these new rules.

Duke accumulated the highest multi-year APR scores among all ACC institutions in 14 different sports – baseball (1000), men’s basketball (990), women’s basketball (995 – tied with one other), men’s cross country (1000 – tied with four), football (986), men’s golf (1000 – tied with four), men’s lacrosse (997), women’s lacrosse (1000 – tied with one), men’s soccer (1000), men’s swimming and diving (997 – tied with one), men’s indoor track and field (1000), men’s outdoor track and field (1000), women’s volleyball (1000 – tied with one), and wrestling (996).

--Jason "by the way, an APR of 930 equals a 50% graduation rate... I think that is a fine minimum for schools going to the NCAA tourney" Evans

[CDu]

I'm all for Calhoun and UConn suffering from this, but it seems inappropriate to change the penalty structure for the current academic year. Seems more appropriate to say "if schools aren't to point X by next year, they can't participate in next year's tournament (and so forth moving forward)." Calhoun and UConn might have made previous decisions a bit differently (at least one could make the argument) had they known the penalty structure in advance.

That said, I won't cry for Calhoun if they do enforce such a penalty. I'd be surprised if they went through with it this year though.

Does the APR only apply to scholarship players? In other words, do walk-ons play into the APR? If so, there is a workaround: simply adding academically-inclined non-scholarship players to the varsity to boost graduation rates. I apologize if this has already been discussed (I'm guessing it has - it can't be a unique idea).

[JasonEvans]

The NCAA made the rule change official today, though for the 2013 tourney, not the 2012 one. Still, ESPN says UConn will not be eligible for the 2013 tourney because their graduation record is so poor.

Good. Serves them right. Being a basketball factory is not what college hoops should be about.

-Jason "everyone associated with that school should be ashamed today -- and Calhoun should have been forced into retirement a year ago" Evans

[SCMatt33]

I had been working on a new post, but this was put up before I finished so I will put my post here. Sorry for the repeated info, but it's hard to separate it from the new stuff.

Lots of big news to talk about as the NCAA D-I board of directors passed several major changes ranging from scholarships to recruiting to academics. The biggest immediate effect from these is that the new APR requirements will likely make UConn ineligible for the 2013 NCAA Tourney. Here are the NCAA releases on the overall D-I changes, and the basketball specific recruiting changes.

Here's a quick rundown of the new rules before I get into details:

• The APR standards have been adjusted and there is now a definitive cutoff for the postseason
• The GPA standards for initial eligibility have been increased
• The $2000 CoA allowance will be implemented
• Multi-year scholarships up to the full term of eligibility are allowed
• Former student-athletes who are no longer eligible can now recieve aid

For Men's Basketball only:

• Phone calls and texts will now be unlimited starting the summer after a prospect's sophomore year
• Private social network messaging is allowed, but public messaging is not
• The April evaluation period is restored
• The July elaluation period is shortened
• Official visits will be allowed starting January 1st of a prospect's junior year
• On-campus evaluations will be allowed during official visits

This is a crap ton of rule changes and I will discuss most of the details at another time, but there are a few key thoughts:

The first has to be the APR changes. Starting next year schools will need a four year total of 900 or a two year total of 930 to qualify. A few years down the road, those numbers will increase to 930 and 940 respectively. The big news out of this is that UConn will be ineligible for the 2013 NCAA Tourney. They are expected to have a score of 975 for 2011 which will put their averages at 888.5 for four years and 900.5 for two years, well short of the requirements. ESPN has confirmed that the total through 2011 will be used to evaluate postseason eligibility for 2012-13.

My other thought is that many of these proposals are things we have heard brought up in the media and by the public many times over the last year or so. As much as we give the NCAA crap for being inconsistent, they have a recent track record of listening to the rest of us when it comes to some of their rule changes. Obviously, that doesn't include some huge issues on the enforcement front or pay-for-play, but they do a better job than any other sports organization, from the pro leagues to college conferences. Think about it, in the last 18 months, the NCAA opted to go only to 68 teams instead of 96 after a big public and media backlash. After careful consideration, they put some at large teams in the play-in games, a proposition made by many outside the NCAA. Now they are adopting a CoA increase, introducing multi-year scholarships, and changing recruiting rules in they way that most basketball experts and coaches have seen fit. Kudos to the NCAA for making these things happen and hopefully they will continue to explore new ideas.

[awich1]

The NCAA made the rule change official today, though for the 2013 tourney, not the 2012 one. Still, ESPN says UConn will not be eligible for the 2013 tourney because their graduation record is so poor.

Good. Serves them right. Being a basketball factory is not what college hoops should be about.

-Jason "everyone associated with that school should be ashamed today -- and Calhoun should have been forced into retirement a year ago" Evans

As a resident of CT I am ashamed that Calhoun is revered by most people up here who don't know or care how he plays the game. He wins and that's all that matters. Jason- when you started the story a few days ago, I thought there was little likelihood that Uconn would be barred from the 2012 tourney. So this gives Calhoun the opportunity to go out in a blaze of glory with his hired hand, Drummond, and leave the cesspool for his successor.

[SCMatt33]

As a resident of CT I am ashamed that Calhoun is revered by most people up here who don't know or care how he plays the game. He wins and that's all that matters. Jason- when you started the story a few days ago, I thought there was little likelihood that Uconn would be barred from the 2012 tourney. So this gives Calhoun the opportunity to go out in a blaze of glory with his hired hand, Drummond, and leave the cesspool for his successor.

The original proposal was to implement a minimum for this upcoming season, but that got pushed back a year. I'm guessing that it was because there was a backlash for not giving schools time to adjust, but since the 2013 eligibility will be based on scores through 2011, which still doesn't give schools time to adjust. I guess I would compare this to getting a D on a test, and then being told when you get the test back that you needed a C to pass. Should UConn be proud of getting a D? No. Should they be striving to do better (which they appear to have done in 2011 btw, with an expected 975)? Yes. It doesn't seem right though to essentially fail them for getting a D, when a D was a passing score at the time they got it.

[hurleyfor3]

And they have the gall to want to join our conference.

[JasonEvans]

The original proposal was to implement a minimum for this upcoming season, but that got pushed back a year. I'm guessing that it was because there was a backlash for not giving schools time to adjust, but since the 2013 eligibility will be based on scores through 2011, which still doesn't give schools time to adjust. I guess I would compare this to getting a D on a test, and then being told when you get the test back that you needed a C to pass. Should UConn be proud of getting a D? No. Should they be striving to do better (which they appear to have done in 2011 btw, with an expected 975)? Yes. It doesn't seem right though to essentially fail them for getting a D, when a D was a passing score at the time they got it.

I hear you, but this wasn't just getting a D on a test, this was failing to keep your athletes on course to graduate. That should be priority #1 for an athletic program. Equating it to merely taking a test is a bit of a failed analogy in my mind. This is a far more serious matter.

It is my understanding that having half your players on course to graduate gives a school an APR of 930. So, UConn's shamefully poor score of 800-somthing basically means they had a year where pretty much all their players were failing classes and/or not taking enough classes to make meaningful progress toward graduation. That's far worse than getting a D on a test.

I supposed there is a degree of unfairness in making this move so quickly that some schools simply will not have time to recover but I think you have to punish those schools for so blatantly failing at their primary mission -- education.

-Jason "we may root againt UNC for being our rival -- but you have to respect the honesty of that program and how they educate their athletes... UConn gets zero respect from me... that's a school we should truly hate" Evans

[SCMatt33]

I hear you, but this wasn't just getting a D on a test, this was failing to keep your athletes on course to graduate. That should be priority #1 for an athletic program. Equating it to merely taking a test is a bit of a failed analogy in my mind. This is a far more serious matter.

It is my understanding that having half your players on course to graduate gives a school an APR of 930. So, UConn's shamefully poor score of 800-somthing basically means they had a year where pretty much all their players were failing classes and/or not taking enough classes to make meaningful progress toward graduation. That's far worse than getting a D on a test.

I supposed there is a degree of unfairness in making this move so quickly that some schools simply will not have time to recover but I think you have to punish those schools for so blatantly failing at their primary mission -- education.

-Jason "we may root againt UNC for being our rival -- but you have to respect the honesty of that program and how they educate their athletes... UConn gets zero respect from me... that's a school we should truly hate" Evans

I understand that's what the standard should be, and that's why the NCAA is changing it. I'm all for that. It also wasn't the system that was in place yesterday. I have a serious problem with judging what someone did yesterday based on the rules of today. If a test isn't serious enough, how about federal law. One of the lawyers here can remind me what it's called, but laws can't be applied that way. I don't care how serious it is, you can't change the rules of the game in the middle. I think that it was the NCAA's problem for setting such a low bar. To use another legal analogy on another serious matter, I don't blame GE for not paying any taxes, keeping millions from the public, I blame the US Government for writing a poor tax code. Does that make what GE or UConn did morally or ethically right, no, but they were well within their rights to do it. Punishing them for it is hypocritical.

What's worse is that the NCAA is not applying this standard in all of the new rules. The new GPA requirements won't go into effect until August 2015, meaning that it will affect current college freshman. How come the seniors who didn't meet these new standards aren't getting the UConn treatment. Clearly they should have been able to get a 2.3 average in high school. That's only a C+.

Sorry to come off kind of harsh on that, but its a bogus application of a new rule. I certainly can't say that UConn doesn't deserve it, but that doesn't make it right.

[DaveR]

The original proposal was to implement a minimum for this upcoming season, but that got pushed back a year. I'm guessing that it was because there was a backlash for not giving schools time to adjust, but since the 2013 eligibility will be based on scores through 2011, which still doesn't give schools time to adjust. I guess I would compare this to getting a D on a test, and then being told when you get the test back that you needed a C to pass. Should UConn be proud of getting a D? No. Should they be striving to do better (which they appear to have done in 2011 btw, with an expected 975)? Yes. It doesn't seem right though to essentially fail them for getting a D, when a D was a passing score at the time they got it.

Agree ... but, what's done is done - hopefully UConn will adapt

[uh_no]

There also will be an appeals process before a team is banned from the tournament, the NCAA said.

On Wednesday, UConn president Susan Herbst said she was confident that the new rule would not be implemented until schools such as Connecticut have a chance to show they have made improvements.
"We just need time to prepare, and I think that's true for a lot of institutions," she said. "We need to get the supports in place so they can meet any new standard. I have no doubt that we'll have that chance."

Walter Harrison, the president of the University of Hartford and chairman of the NCAA's Committee on Academic Performance, seemed to indicate Thursday that was the intent.
"They are giving schools and teams a chance to change their behavior, but also doing it pretty rapidly so they are going to have to get on the stick," he said.

I'm would first like to point out that syracuse also missed the APR. Not that the state of uconn's academic affairs hasn't been pitiable, but there ARE some issues out of the coache's control (unless you want to deem that boeheim doesn't care about educating his players...which I don't think anyone here would claim).

That said, the last quote is very telling. for a school to have moved up 80 points in the rankings in a year, and were on progress to have a similarly high score the year previous (the results might even be out at that time since they have sped up the process), they would likely be a very strong candidate for an appeal (and being uconn, who this board has determined the NCAA goes out of their way to protect after the way they were punished for text-gate, they would likely end up being able to make a very strong case)

Regardless, I'm happy that Uconn is being forced to value academics.

[OldPhiKap]

AP picks up the trail:


"Academics put UConn in jeopardy for '13"

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebask...rnament-102711

[Indoor66]

I understand that's what the standard should be, and that's why the NCAA is changing it. I'm all for that. It also wasn't the system that was in place yesterday. I have a serious problem with judging what someone did yesterday based on the rules of today. If a test isn't serious enough, how about federal law. One of the lawyers here can remind me what it's called, but laws can't be applied that way. I don't care how serious it is, you can't change the rules of the game in the middle. I think that it was the NCAA's problem for setting such a low bar. To use another legal analogy on another serious matter, I don't blame GE for not paying any taxes, keeping millions from the public, I blame the US Government for writing a poor tax code. Does that make what GE or UConn did morally or ethically right, no, but they were well within their rights to do it. Punishing them for it is hypocritical.

What's worse is that the NCAA is not applying this standard in all of the new rules. The new GPA requirements won't go into effect until August 2015, meaning that it will affect current college freshman. How come the seniors who didn't meet these new standards aren't getting the UConn treatment. Clearly they should have been able to get a 2.3 average in high school. That's only a C+.

Sorry to come off kind of harsh on that, but its a bogus application of a new rule. I certainly can't say that UConn doesn't deserve it, but that doesn't make it right.

You refer to ex post facto for applying a law retroactively. I would point out that the NCAA has been talking about academic performance for a long time. There is no excuse for the low performance by ucon or any other school. They have been abdicating their primary responsibility to the alter of W's. This is inexcusable. If there is a "wrong" here, it is that the rule is not being applied immediately.

[cspan37421]

Solution:

1. Find a group of professors who are basketball fans. Ply them with good tickets if necessary.
2. Emphasize the NEED for players to pass courses and thus graduate.
3. Profit!

[OldPhiKap]

Solution:

1. Find a group of professors who are basketball fans. Ply them with good tickets if necessary.
2. Emphasize the NEED for players to pass courses and thus graduate.
3. Profit!

Does that come from the Jim Harrick gnomes?

[uh_no]

AP picks up the trail:


"Academics put UConn in jeopardy for '13"

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebask...rnament-102711

I wish I remembered where, but I recall a stat, this law will put 8? teams from last years tournament in the same position, and 20 teams from last years field would have missed the tournament at least once in the past 6 years.

One team (indiana) would have missed this APR for 6 straight years, and as I previously mentioned, Syracuse missed the APR last year as well. I understand Uconn is getting a lot of flack for having won the championship, but they're hardly the only teams in that boat. Furthermore, I'd like to point out that their team in 2013 could be barred for the team's academic performance in 2010...3 years earlier. Especially if the current kids are pumping out a 975 apr, its ludicrous that a bunch of bimbos 3 years earlier can keep a bunch of kids who are doing their work out of the tournament. I understand the NCAA works by punishing people who don't commit crimes (aka current USC football players), but the NCAA needs to make this punishment more timely, not 2-3 years down the road. It's simply not fair to the current guys (as well as it was not fair that the kids who missed the APR receive no punishment...but it is what it is and there's no real good way to fix it)

anyway, i think if uconn has showed clear evidence that they have righted the ship (and the 975 apr is indicative of that...we'll see if they keep it up), they likely would win an appeal, perhaps based on provisional data from the more recent APRs...it will be interesting to see how some of the other schools that are on pace to be barred react.

[El_Diablo]

You refer to ex post facto for applying a law retroactively. I would point out that the NCAA has been talking about academic performance for a long time. There is no excuse for the low performance by ucon or any other school. They have been abdicating their primary responsibility to the alter of W's. This is inexcusable. If there is a "wrong" here, it is that the rule is not being applied immediately.

I checked the official NCAA website at http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/newmedia/pub...tes/index.html to see who else would be ineligible were it applied immediately. I only looked at the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, PAC-12, and C-USA, but were it put into effect right now, the following schools would be ineligible for the 2012 tournament:

-Indiana
-Iowa State
-Colorado
-ECU
-UAB
-Houston
-Southern Mississippi

The following schools averaged below 930 for the last two years, but would still be eligible because their four-year average is over 900:

-Georgia Tech
-Maryland
-Arkansas
-South Carolina
-Southern California
-Syracuse
-UConn*
-USF

*Interestingly, the website says UConn had an APR of 893 for 2009-2010, not the 826 being reported by the media. If the numbers on the website are wrong, some of these schools may be wrongly included or excluded from these lists, like UConn (which appears to be wrongly recorded on the website for the last several years, given the current uproar).

[OldPhiKap]

I wish I remembered where, but I recall a stat, this law will put 8? teams from last years tournament in the same position, and 20 teams from last years field would have missed the tournament at least once in the past 6 years.

One team (indiana) would have missed this APR for 6 straight years, and as I previously mentioned, Syracuse missed the APR last year as well. I understand Uconn is getting a lot of flack for having won the championship, but they're hardly the only teams in that boat. Furthermore, I'd like to point out that their team in 2013 could be barred for the team's academic performance in 2010...3 years earlier. Especially if the current kids are pumping out a 975 apr, its ludicrous that a bunch of bimbos 3 years earlier can keep a bunch of kids who are doing their work out of the tournament. I understand the NCAA works by punishing people who don't commit crimes (aka current USC football players), but the NCAA needs to make this punishment more timely, not 2-3 years down the road. It's simply not fair to the current guys (as well as it was not fair that the kids who missed the APR receive no punishment...but it is what it is and there's no real good way to fix it)

anyway, i think if uconn has showed clear evidence that they have righted the ship (and the 975 apr is indicative of that...we'll see if they keep it up), they likely would win an appeal, perhaps based on provisional data from the more recent APRs...it will be interesting to see how some of the other schools that are on pace to be barred react.

You highlight two very good points:

1. The NCAA's punishment of current and future teams for past transgressions is terrible. Especially in situations where the coach or player(s) that caused the trouble are long gone.

2. The press likes to see the champs fall. Duke got this treatment for years, albeit for different reasons. Part of being on top is having lots of folks trying to pull you down.

[TampaDuke]

Furthermore, I'd like to point out that their team in 2013 could be barred for the team's academic performance in 2010...3 years earlier. Especially if the current kids are pumping out a 975 apr, its ludicrous that a bunch of bimbos 3 years earlier can keep a bunch of kids who are doing their work out of the tournament. I understand the NCAA works by punishing people who don't commit crimes (aka current USC football players), but the NCAA needs to make this punishment more timely, not 2-3 years down the road. It's simply not fair to the current guys (as well as it was not fair that the kids who missed the APR receive no punishment...but it is what it is and there's no real good way to fix it)

Maybe the NCAA views the low graduation rate as a reflection of UConn's effort in that area, not just the players who contributed to it?

You may be right that a quicker sanction would be more appropriate, but is there much doubt that UConn missing the tourney a time or two, with its corresponding devastating effects on high-level recruiting, will lead to the NCAA's desired result?

[uh_no]

Maybe the NCAA views the low graduation rate as a reflection of UConn's effort in that area, not just the players who contributed to it?

You may be right that a quicker sanction would be more appropriate, but is there much doubt that UConn missing the tourney a time or two, with its corresponding devastating effects on high-level recruiting, will lead to the NCAA's desired result?

Take a look at uconn's record over the past 15 years...they do plenty of missing tournaments on their own without the NCAA's help :P

that said, do you think it prudent to punish teams who have shown a desire to change, and have implemented measures that so far appear to be effective?

I don't have a problem with this rule. I also believe that should it come down to it, and should uconn continue to demonstrate a high APR since committing to academics, they would likely win an appeal to be postseason eligible.