The University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport said in its report this week that eight teams that made the 2014 men's bracket fall below the NCAA-mandated Academic Progress Rate score of 930, equivalent to a 50 percent graduation rate. Last year six teams didn't reach that benchmark.
An annual study of the schools in the men's NCAA tournament shows a slight increase in teams that fall below graduation rate standards.
Study author Richard Lapchick said while academic reforms overall have led to positive change, he urged tougher measures. He would like to see the NCAA's four-year standard raised to a graduation rate equivalent to 60 percent.
This year 88 percent of the teams in the men's tournament currently graduate at least 60 percent of their players.
Currently, teams scoring below a 925 APR can lose up to 10 percent of their scholarships. Teams can also be subject to penalties for poor academic performance over time.
Teams in this year's field that would be subject to NCAA-imposed sanctions that could keep them from postseason play are: Cal Poly (925), Coastal Carolina (921), North Carolina Central (903), Oklahoma State (928), Providence (915), Texas Southern (900), Connecticut (897) and Oregon (918).
Beginning with 2012-13 championships, teams must earn a minimum 900 four-year APR or a 930 average over the most recent two years to be eligible for NCAA championships.
In 2014, seven teams fell below 925, compared with three teams in 2013. The APR was developed by the NCAA in 2004 as a way to improve graduation rates. It is a four-year rolling average of academic performance that takes into account academic eligibility and retention.
Connecticut is back in the field following a one-year NCAA tournament ban last year after failing to meet APR minimums. UConn was one of 10 schools barred from last year's postseason.
"The loss of scholarships and being banned from postseason play is the thing coaches dread most," Lapchick said. "I was glad to see UConn made such a good improvement. I can't attribute it all to (the tournament ban), but I'm sure they're going to do everything in their power to put students on campus that can have the greatest success academically."
UConn said in October it will report a perfect APR of 1,000 for the 2012-13 school year.
The NCAA recently voted to institute stricter policies with regards to APR performance and postseason participation. The new legislation will require teams to have a four-year APR above 930 to qualify for postseason participation the following year.
For 2014-15, teams must earn a 930 four-year average APR or a 940 average over the most recent two years to participate in championships. In 2015-16 and beyond, teams must earn a four-year APR of 930.
This year's study again noted the wide disparity between the Graduation Success Rates between white and African-American players on this year's NCAA tournament teams.
The GSR numbers for white players decreased slightly from 90 percent in 2013 to 89 percent in 2014. For African-American players it remained the same from 2013 to 2014 at 65 percent.
Lapchick also called it "unacceptable" that 38 percent of tournament teams had a GSR disparity this year greater than 30 percent between white and African-American players, and 47 percent with a disparity greater than 20 percent.
He wants the NCAA to impose penalties for historically poor GSR racial disparities, as it does for consistently bad APR scores.
"This is what I've been pointing out in football studies for a decade," he said. "I think it is one thing that should be part of APR. If they are at one of those schools with 30 percent disparities, at some point (penalties) should be invoked."
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Copyright 2014 The Associated Press.
Comments
Bans
I do agree with the bans on some teams for not meeting the academic requirements. The primary concern should be that the athletes are going to classes and getting good grades. Not only does it hurt the player when grades are bad but it also hurts their future. If penalties or bans are not being placed on poor academics than the athletes are not properly equipped for the real world after college because they might not know enough to get into a certain job. Also, the penalties and bans could be the one thing that pushes the athletes to perform better academically therefore helping them set themselves up for a better future.
I agree that academics should
I agree that academics should be the focus in NCAA schools but it is not. Many times professors will give the athlete a passing grade only because the athlete is a star. This happens in Division 1 universities a lot. So if students are able to get by without doing any work in some classes, it may lead them to never work hard academically in other classes.
I'm not saying its the head
I'm not saying its the head coach's job but maybe each team needs someone that checks up on their grades and helps the athlete out in letting help like tutoring and study groups. The head coach for sure has no time to be worrying about that stuff but if their grades get too bad then they will be worrying. I'm just saying that there should be a person that makes sure each of the athletes are on track with their grades and classes.
Agree
I also agree that the bans should be done because playing for a team at a college is a privileged. I think that having these band will allow for an athlete to perform better for their classes as well as prepare them for the real world. Students should see these penalties and bans as a way for them to focus on their grades and academics rather than a punishments. Once they are where they need to be, then they should have the privilege of getting back on the court. After all, the most important thing is their education and they should not gamble it away because of a game.
For these players their lives
For these players their lives are all about basketball and they have many pressures to succeed in basketball. Basketball is their whole lives and that's what they are focusing more on. I think the coaches should be involved a lot in their players schooling. Coaches should check up on how they are doing and if they need any help. Coaches need to push them on and off the court to succeed. The players are most likely going to respond better to their coaches because those coaches are with them for a lot of the time during college.
This is an extremely
This is an extremely idealistic situation. Many times coaches are completely focused on basketball and ignore academics, especially in larger schools. A coach's job is not to teach the student what they need to learn in class. Although it would be nice for a coach to put academics first, I do not believe it will happen anytime soon.
Unfortunate
Its unfortunate that your correct. Coaches jobs are going to be based on their teams performance and could careless about their teams grades unless it hinders how they play. That's why the NCAA should ultimately disqualify these teams to stress the importance of education. It is with that that coaches would put more pressure on their players to excel in their studies and not just in games.
I am agreeing with you that
I am agreeing with you that academics must come first because others are the part of it....so coaches should put emphasize on players for meaning the students who involve themselves in sports to work hard academically first, before sports and after academics is where sports can take place.
True
I agree with you when you point out that those players are focused only on basketball. That is actually the main problem because they are in college. I also agree with you when you explain that coaches should be more involved with players in order to know how are the players doing in classes. The punishment should not come from the NCAA. It should come first from the coach and then from the University to help the players realizes that they can not do whatever they want.
I agree with you that the
I agree with you that the coaches should be more involved with there students academics but at the same the player needs to know that if they aren't doing good in school then they aren't going to be allowed to play. If this point is stressed to the player, they will try a lot harder to get good grades in school because playing basketball is so important to them.
I'm wondering if the reason
I'm wondering if the reason for the high numbers of dropouts is more focused on academics or sports. Many of these players may only be attending school for basketball. They may not care about classes or they may be having a hard time with time management. Also, some of them could be dropping out of college so that they can join the NBA because school is not their top priority.
Being a student athlete is
Being a student athlete is though. I can guarantee that based in my own experience.
I agree that it is not the coaches job to push their athletes academically. However, someone inside the athletic department of the university should have that job and also their academic progress should be monitored as grades are a requirement of the NCAA.
In big schools, specially D1 ones, the athlete are maybe focused on making sports a career, but that is not an excused to fail in class or having bad grades. We all know that being an athlete is a short career as it depends on physical performance that we know we don't keep it forever.
Your mind though, is something that you will keep forever, and your intellectual skills are very important. The things you learn in college can help you inside the court/field, the athlete just have to figure it out how. It is important for the athletes future.
Once the athletic department has these two functions working well together, good results will come, in the classrooms and in the court.
They need an Advocate
I agree, it should not be the coaches job to watch out for academics. I feel that an advocate might be useful. Someone that could look over their academics. As you said most big school D1 schools do focus on sports careers and I feel that if an advocate was there to instill some discipline when it comes to academics, these test results would change. As the athletes fight for their sports careers, the advocates would be fighting for their lives post sports career. As you said sports careers are short lived and knowledge is very important for life after sports.
They need an Advocate
I agree, it should not be the coaches job to watch out for academics. I feel that an advocate might be useful. Someone that could look over their academics. As you said most big school D1 schools do focus on sports careers and I feel that if an advocate was there to instill some discipline when it comes to academics, these test results would change. As the athletes fight for their sports careers, the advocates would be fighting for their lives post sports career. As you said sports careers are short lived and knowledge is very important for life after sports.
True
This is true, but there are many coaches that actually preach focus on athletics over academics, and they are a huge part of this problem. As a college basketball player myself, I can personally attest that I have met players who have told me their coaches are this way. A lot of things go on in major college athletics behind the scenes, and academic problems are the least of it. For all of those bad scores, there are many other schools that change school scores to remain eligible and get away with it all the time.
The need for an advocate
I academic performance and athletics should be on an even playing field. One should not out way the other. It seems nowadays that school officials and coaches push for great seasons and not necessarily put down academics, however it seems to be pushed to the backside. However I do think that both the players and coaches should be at fault. The players should realize and note when their academics are nearing bad out comes and the coaches should not have to ‘babysit’ and make sure they are completing what needs to be done off the court. To improve this issue I think someone should be given the duty to advocate for both the students and the coaches. There should be someone there to look at grades and to help the players. They should be able to instill discipline where it is need. Such as, if a player is frequently getting bad grades, not turning in homework, that person would have the authority to not let them practice and get their work done. I think this would be both beneficial for students to find time management and coaches would have players with higher academic score who could play for them. I realize that most students in athletics are fighting for a sports career, but those advocates would be fighting for their lives post sports career.
NCAA Academic Bans
I agree that teams should be held accountable with either a loss of scholarship funds, penalties, or even being banned from post-season competition. For schools who highly value their team, it would encourage the entire campus to put extra effort into academics (in theory). Stricter rules on academic progress should be enforced campus wide, not just for the sake of the sports team, but for the over-all improvement of the campus.
However, I don't feel that the basketball team should be held entirely responsible (made to pay a penalty, loose scholarships) for a difference in graduation rates between racial categories; it is the school's job to be providing equal, high-quality education to EVERY student. If the school is failing to provide the above to all of its students, some other penalty should be inflicted other than loosing a basketball team.
i thunk what needed to be
i thunk what needed to be done is increasing the efforts towards the improvement of the tearms as more exercices and practices to make sure tht things become the way they where before
Other Teams
How is it fair to the other teams that can maintain their grades and play whereas these teams are allowed to play on subpar grades? Perhaps they need to reconsider what is important (a higher education since they are all in college) and get their grades up before having more practice. The NCAA needs to disqualify them and send a message to all of those in sports that their is no excuse for slacking on your study's.
The bans seem to be a
The bans seem to be a positive thing to help increase the academic success of athletes. The purpose of going to college it is not to play a certain sport to end up in professional league. Being pro is, sure, the dream of many but it is also important to have a plan B, to leave a loophole. College is an opportunity to pursue one's dreams of playing pro through training, support, and competing in the college league, however, anything can happen. An injury or something else might come in the way so it is important to plan ahead and pursue a future job career.
Bans
As an African American college basketball player myself, I know only too well about the struggles with team GPA and on-court success. The problem is, a lot of successful coaches (such as Bob Huggins) do not seem to care about academics at all! The NCAA letting these teams continue to appear in the most popular tournament on Earth has been doing nothing to help the cause either. The fact of the matter is, we are student athletes, there is a reason the word student comes before athlete: it's supposed to come first. It is not all the fault of athletes or the coaches however, the schools have to be more active in the fight for change to occur.
I totally agree with this, I
I totally agree with this, I was a student athlete and honestly even when you have a coach that cares about your education, the demands of playing DIVI and trying to maintain a good GPA is near impossible even for a good student. I am a 3.8 GPA student without sport but when I played sports I was barely able to carry a 3.0 GPA. There is only so much time in the day for the gym, school, and multiple practices in a day. Because like you said we are students before we are athletes not the other way around.
I think may be there is
I think may be there is something which can be decrease on the GSR number whites players which leads to decrease in score also, so it will be better for them to work on those, so as to make sure that wont decrease on the other time and remain as the African-American do in 2013-2013 to remain in the same percent or even to increase more. as it is much better than to remain constant on the other side.
I do feel like there should
I do feel like there should be NCCA sanctions and rules when it comes to student athletes but I feel like it should be a two part process. There should be rules for the schools to follow and rules for the students to follow but the group receiving the punishment should be the ones who are actually guilty of the rule violations. If in 2014 a school doesn't meet the requirement for graduation and you penalize the 2015 team by not allowing them to play in the tournament you are not penalizing the students who violated the rule, you are penalizing students that could very well graduate and meet the standard. The penalty needs to match the crime. If the school violates the rules and doesn’t meet graduation rates you need to penalize the school. I also feel like there needs to be stricter checks and balances when it comes to yearly grades. People are not graduating because they are failing along the way not because they slipped up one semester. If the NCAA truly cared about the students and their educations that would set a semester standard to students GPA’s, and hold the students accountable throughout the season verse simply holding the university responsible because then you will have teachers who just pass people, so they graduate and meet the standard.
Student Athletes
I believe that there should be rules when it comes to a student athlete's grades. A person who plays a sport at a college/university is a student first and an athlete second. A student athlete, especially one in the spotlight, represents the school and is a role model to those around them. Therefore, not only does the student have the responsibility to keep their grades up, but they also have the responsibility from the spotlight to show younger kids and their peers that they work hard for good grades as well. I agree with UCCSWEST-S2014-17 that this is a two part process. The student should take part in keeping their grades up as well as the school monitoring the grades of their athletes. If a student athlete does not meet their grade requirements, then there should be a penalty for it. The school should also be proactive and taking steps to help their athletes who are starting to slip or already have when it comes to grades.
It is right
I am an athlete-student as well and I understand what this is about. In my case my coach explained us what are we suppose to do in classes from the beginning and if we do not accomplish that we can not play and not even practice. Simple as that.
The college athletes are old enough to realize what they have to do what is not going to help them. That is why I believe that the person who do not understand that and do not accomplish with the grades required must be punished. First of all they are getting money from the school for playing. The only condition that they have is to pass classes because is not even to have a 3.5 GPA. The minimun thing that they could do is to answer the University by doing what the have been told.
I believe that the punishment should come from the own college first but if that does not happen of course NCAA should punish the entire team in order to remark that it is a serious condition.
I completely agree. The
I completely agree. The athletes shoud be held accountable for their decisions; however, the athletic department should set the rules first. If the University seems not to care so much about the academics, neither the athletes will be, specially the ones focused in making sports a career.
Here at Park University there is a great concern about athletes grades and I believe most of the coaches pushes their athletes - one more than others - in order to keep up with that rule otherwise we are not allowed to play or even practice, as you said.
I believe that is a good thing for us in the future, especially for smaller schools that may not have their athletes making careers and need that for their future.
i don't see how this story
i don't see how this story has anything to do with race. I don't think that the athletes are doing poorly because of their race.
PARKS2014-25
I agree with you as well that I don't know how this has to do with race and I'm not sure who you were responding to, but I think you're right. Possibly whoever mentioned race in their post believes the stereotype that all good athletes are African-American and if that were the case maybe they think African-Americans are more likely to do bad in school due to the lack of resources many of them have? Not sure, wish I could have read the initial post to which you were responding to but I most certainly agree wit you that this post doesn't seem to have much to do with race at all.
Accountability
After reading this article I feel that once again other things are put into priority positions over what is really important. Education in my opinion should be the back bone of anything because those better educated are more likely to succeed and make sensible and educated decisions. However, sports programs seem to bypass much of what other institutions would seem important. In regard to this particular situation, I think the teams most certainly need to be held accountable and at least placed on probation until resolved. I don't know much about sports and the correct terminology but I feel like this could be a possibility especially if teams are not meeting the set standards. But then again, some may say that sports are sports and athletes don't have to have significant brains as long as they can perform on the field, track, or whichever it may be.
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