Faculty Athletic Representatives Roused into Action?

Yes, occasionally the NCAA proposes something so outrageous, in this case softening academic demands on men's basketball programs, that it happens, as reported by Doug Lederman at Inside Higher Ed:

“The general feeling [of faculty athletics representatives] is that some of what’s in the early stages of the document takes the approach of fixing the APR by tinkering with the matrix instead of getting substantively at why the APR is low in the first place,” said Josephine R. Potuto, the Richard H. Larson Professor of Constitutional Law and faculty representative at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, who heads a group of faculty representatives from NCAA Division I-A universities that wrote to NCAA leaders last week. “The predominant if not exclusive focus should be on the root causes, not on the APR.” . . .

Faculty athletics representatives from the Pacific-10 Conference, in a November 3 letter to Myles Brand and Dan Guerrero, the athletics director at the University of California at Los Angeles who heads the basketball academic enhancement group, said the problem isn’t that basketball players as a group are less academically prepared, but that the players many Division I colleges have historically chosen to recruit and admit are less prepared for academic success.

“Now, faced with academic penalties as a consequence of such recruitment practices, these programs seek to blame the students they recruited for the lack of success they have experienced,” the Pac-10 faculty leaders write. “[W]e are concerned that this opening statement ... is really meant to provide a justification for recommendations ... that would reduce the impact of the NCAA’s Academic Performance Program ... on men’s basketball.” . . .

The basketball working group’s report does offer several substantive proposals aimed at bolstering the academic performance of basketball players once they’re in college, including performing adequately in several credit hours of required summer school.

But its report focuses heavily on a set of changes that would limit the pain that teams feel when their players fail to make progress toward a degree. One would grant exceptions so that teams would not be punished under the Academic Progress Rate when athletes leave a college because of a coaching change. Another would give teams an extra point when a player graduates early (perhaps making up for points they’ve lost because players haven’t graduated at all). Yet another would provide more leeway (some if already granted) if players leave college early to go pro.

In other words, the proposals would serve to further enable behavior which, with the exception of quick graduation, the NCAA should be discouraging. Progression please Myles, not regression.

Links to USA Today Special Report

There was an excellent series of reports at USA today last week on the demands, stresses, and problems inherent in intercollegiate athletics. This sort of journalism validates the necessity of and active press - there is only so much that a blogger can accomplish. Read away!

College athletes studies guided towards 'major in elibigility'

My comments here.

Same team, same major

This illustrates the widespread existence of major clusters, which the NCAA used to claim were not widespread, and now claim are not a problem.

'You could consider football a full-time job'

This story, and the accompanying video, follows a day in the life of model STUDENT-athlete and Illinois center Ryan McDonald.

Athletes' academic choices put advisers in tough balancing act

This story exposes the problems in the academic advising system for athletes. It would not be so much of a problem if most advisers did not report to the Athletic Director. . .

UNLV athletes question degrees in university studies

Some Universities are issuing degrees which their recipients are embarrassed of. YIKES!

"A major in eligibility, with a minor in beating the system"

This sums up the academic atmosphere for all too many NCAA student-athletes today, as exposed in some excellent investigative journalism by USA Today. The entire series of articles is in the must-read category. Here are some of the most telling passages from the central piece:

Steven Cline left Kansas State University last spring with memories of two years as a starting defensive lineman for a major-college football team. He left with a diploma, credits toward a master's degree and a place on the 2007 Big 12 Conference all-academic team.

He also left with regrets about accomplishing all of this by majoring in social sciences — a program that drew 34% of the football team's juniors and seniors last season, compared with about 4% of all juniors and seniors at Kansas State. Cline says he found not-so-demanding courses that helped him have success in the classroom and on the field but did little for his dream of becoming a veterinarian. . . .

His experience reflects how the NCAA's toughening of academic requirements for athletes has helped create an environment in which they are more likely to graduate than other students — but also more likely to be clustered in programs without the academic demands most students face.

Some athletes say they have pursued — or have been steered to — degree programs that helped keep them eligible for sports but didn't prepare them for post-sports careers.

"A major in eligibility, with a minor in beating the system," says C. Keith Harrison, an associate professor at the University of Central Florida, where he is associate director of the Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sports.

Note that NCAA President Myles Brand wrote quite recently:

Across the spectrum of Division I, there is little evidence of "clustering," or disproportionate numbers of student-athletes in certain majors.

Let me be clear! You can find examples of football or men's basketball programs with unacceptably low graduation rates. You can also find teams where unexplainably large numbers of football or men's basketball athletes are clustered in certain majors.

The USA Today report explodes Brand's talking point:

A USA TODAY study of the majors of juniors and seniors in five prominent sports at 142 of the NCAA's top-level schools shows athletes at many institutions clustering in certain majors, in some cases at rates highly disproportionate to those of all students.

The study involved the fall 2007 student rolls and the 2007-08 rosters for Division I teams in five sports — football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball and softball.

All 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) were included, as were 22 other Division I schools with standout men's or women's basketball teams. Nearly 9,300 athletes across 654 teams were covered by the study. Among the findings:

•83% of the schools (118 of 142) had at least one team in which at least 25% of the juniors and seniors majored in the same thing. For example, seven of the 19 players on Stanford's baseball team majored in sociology.

•34% of the teams (222 of 654) had at least one such cluster of student-athletes.

•More than half of the clusters are what some analysts refer to as "extreme," in which at least 40% of athletes on a team are in the same major (125 of 235). All seven of the juniors and seniors on Texas-El Paso's men's basketball team majored in multidisciplinary studies, for example. . . .

Brand's response?

"Clustering by itself is replicated in many parts of the university. It's not necessarily bad," NCAA President Myles Brand says.

Ah, what an excellent rhetorical shift Myles. When the evidence shows that it is a widespread issue, just claim that it is not a problem. Or, sort of a problem. Maybe:

"But when you have extreme clustering … you really do have to ask some hard questions: Is there an adviser who's pushing students into this? Are there some faculty members who are too friendly with student-athletes? I'm not saying that's the case. But I think you have to ask those questions."

The NCAA is going to get on this immediately. Right?

Brand adds that it's up to each school to do so. "There are limits to what the national office can, and should, do," he says. "Anything to do with the academic programs really falls entirely within the purview of the individual institutions." . . .

Silly me for asking the question - way to pass the buck Myles. Where are the students left in all of this?

"There's a mixed message being sent out here" about the importance of academics in college sports, Georgia Tech men's basketball coach Paul Hewitt said in June before the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.

Several athletes echo Hewitt's sentiments.

Former Boise State safety Marty Tadman was among the 48% of the football team's juniors and seniors majoring in communication during the 2007-08 academic year. Boise State's communication program also drew 50% of the juniors and seniors on the men's basketball and women's basketball teams.

"You hear which majors, and which classes, are the easiest and you take them," Tadman says. "You're going to school so you can stay in sports. You're not going for a degree. … It's a joke." . . .

This is, in part, a consequence of the law of unintended consequences:

There also is a new NCAA rule that threatens penalties for teams with too many players who become academically ineligible or fail to graduate. Based on their annually published Academic Progress Rate (APR), teams can lose scholarships and eventually become ineligible for postseason play, either of which can embarrass a school and affect a team's ability to win.

Hewitt, the Georgia Tech men's basketball coach, bluntly articulated many coaches' view of the "unintended consequences" of the APR system at the Knight Commission meeting in June. He said then that when an NCAA official came to the Atlantic Coast Conference meetings four years ago to discuss the APR system, "almost every coach said: 'You understand what you're basically telling us. We're going to encourage our kids to take the easiest path to eligibility.'

"So if I'm at a Georgia Tech, I'm not going to tell a young man he can't major in engineering," Hewitt said. "But I certainly will counsel him before he takes that first class that … if you decide to go down this road and for some reason you find it harder than you expected and you decide to change your major, you're probably more than likely going to end up being ineligible" for sports.

Why not recruit more players with the capacity to both major in engineering and play basketball? Its not like they are not out there. The truth is that they would do nothing for Hewitt's job security. This will remain the case so long as coaches are rewarded for teams successful in competition but incompetent in the classroom, but get fired for graduating players at high rates while posting mediocre records.

NCAA Watch #2: Tougher Infractions Penalties?

The DI Committee on Infractions has suggested a move towards tougher and more extensive penalties for rule-breaking. Lets examine the proposals and consider their impact and potential deterrent effect:

• Employing a broader base of penalties, including fines, postseason bans and other punishments that have not been used in the recent past, such as the television ban.

Fines: Why revive a penalty which did not work in the past, especially for the big-money programs which do not find them burdensome? If fines were revived, then they would merely become a 'cost of doing business'. Bad idea.

Postseason bans: Postseason bans are already utilized, but not enough, and the Infractions Committee needs more latitude to impose them. Excellent idea.

Television Bans: This would hit rule-breakers where it hurt, not only in terms of money, but publicity as well. It is also why, although it is a fabulous idea, one should not expect it to be adopted any time soon.

• Eliminating cooperation with the investigation as a mitigating factor in assessing penalties. . . .The Committee on Infractions believes that the more appropriate way to handle cooperation is to charge refusal to cooperate as an independent violation.

Since the NCAA relies on institutions to self-report rule-breaking, this is a proposal which might hurt more than help. That said, any mitigation should still result in a proportional penalty, which has not always been the case in the past, hence the following:

• Assessing penalties that convey the magnitude of the violation, no matter the type of violation (for example, imposing a scholarship penalty even if the violation does not relate to financial aid).

That is good common sense, but there is one for the lawyers:

• Making public the names of staff members involved in infractions cases.

On the one hand, this is information which, as recent cases show, almost always hits the press. Given that the NCAA has been sued successfully even where names of boosters have been redacted from its reports, this is something that they may wish to remain careful about. Although there is this point:

[Jo] Potuto said cleansing the names from infractions reports is a practice that began before staff members accused of violations had the opportunity to respond to allegations of violations, appear before the Committee on Infractions and appeal any finding to the Infractions Appeals Committee.

On the whole, there is nothing here to hold your breath about.

NCAA Watch #1: Egregious Failure in Gender Equity

Only a day after UDC was cited for 'egregious lack of institutional control' the NCAA released its biennial gender equity report, which, with the exception of Division III, reveals regression rather than improvement. From the NCAA's press release:

Data from the newly released 2005-06 report indicate that in Division I, 66 percent of total expenses were directed toward men’s athletics versus 34 percent for women’s programs. Although the figures represent minimal changes from the 2003-04 report, the gap between men’s and women’s spending is slightly wider (three percentage points) for the 2005-06 report compared to the previous study.

In Division II, the proportion of total expenses devoted to men’s and women’s athletics remained the same (58 percent and 42 percent, respectively) as it was in the 2003-04 report. However, in Division III, the percentage for women’s athletics programs increased by two percentage points (to 44 percent), while men’s allocations dropped by two points to 56 percent. . . .

Head coaches’ salaries are often cited as a major factor in recent increases in athletics spending, and that could continue based on findings in the 2005-06 report. Data from 2005-06 show the proportion of money spent on salaries of head coaches of men’s teams still outpaces the proportion spent on head coaches of women’s teams in Divisions I, II and III, a trend that has remained relatively constant since the report was first issued in 1991-92.

In comparing 2003-04 and 2005-06 findings, Division III was the only division to register an increase, although it was insignificant at just 1 percent, in the proportion of total expenses being directed to head coaches of women’s teams.

Similarly, the proportion of assistant coaches’ salaries for women’s teams lags behind that of men’s programs in all three divisions, according to the 2005-06 report. At Division I institutions without football, assistants of women’s teams receive 47 percent of the salary dollars, which represents a small increase from 2003-04. Comparatively, in the other two divisions, assistants of women’s teams received not more than 31 percent of the salary budget. . . .

For more coverage see this article at Inside Higher Ed, which highlights another part of the problem:

Donna A. Lopiano, former head of the Women’s Sports Foundation and now president of Sports Management Resources, a consulting firm, attributed the apparent decline in support for women’s sports to a number of factors, including the slowdown in the growth of participation of female athletes in high school and college and a tightening economy. “Add in the continued arms race in men’s football and basketball, in particular the academic support building arms race and assistant coach salaries,” and it’s inevitable that athletics departments will have trouble finding enough money to go around, Lopiano said in an e-mail message.

In recent years, most Division I colleges have tended to deal with financial shortfalls by cutting back on men’s sports other than football and men’s basketball, which has often led advocates for those sports to blame the push for gender equity — and Title IX of the Education Amendments, the federal law that requires equitable treatment of female athletes — for their plight. But “with no more men’s sports to squeeze because they’ve already been cut,” Lopiano said, “now women’s sports are being squeezed.”

To top it off, she said, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has largely stopped enforcing Title IX.

Mercifully, this should change on Tuesday, whatever the result.

NCAA Penalizes U. of the District of Columbia

This one has been a long time in coming, and it highlights continuing problems at UDC, which just recently hired yet another president. Best wishes, and best of luck to him. There is a good summary article at Inside Higher Ed, the NCAA press release is here, and details follow from the NCAA public infractions report:

This case presented the single most egregious lack of institutional control ever seen by the committee. Even though the institution has no more than approximately 90 student- athletes whose eligibility has to be tracked at any given time, from the 2000-01 academic year through 2003-04, an astounding 248 student-athletes and two prospective student- athletes were allowed to practice or compete while ineligible and/or receive impermissible athletically related financial aid or housing. The student-athletes were ineligible due to the institution's failure to follow a number of long-time, basic rules that should have been easily adhered to: initial eligibility requirements, transfer requirements, satisfactory progress requirements and the completion of mandatory NCAA forms. . . .

Further, the institution failed to cooperate adequately with the enforcement staff in the investigation of the violations. The institution continually missed deadlines for submitting reports and did not adequately communicate with the enforcement staff. It compromised the integrity of the investigation when it interviewed certain witnesses after being asked to refrain from doing so and then failed to inform the staff that the interviews had occurred. It insisted on conducting an investigation independent of the enforcement staff, but was over two and one-half years late in submitting its final self-reports.

Finally, two former administrators violated the principles of ethical conduct. The former director of athletics refused to answer certain questions in his interviews with the enforcement staff, and the former faculty athletics representative provided false and misleading information regarding his role in the student-athlete certification process. . . .

88 student-athletes were permitted to practice and/or compete while academically ineligible. These student-athletes were ineligible for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to, failing to meet initial-eligibility requirements, failing to meet progress-toward-degree requirements, failing to meet two-year transfer requirements, failing to meet four-year transfer requirements and/or failing to satisfy the minimum 12- credit-hour requirement. The number of student-athletes per sport were as follows: men's basketball (26); women's basketball (seven); men's cross country (five); women's cross country (four); men's soccer (28); men's tennis (four); women's tennis (five) and women's volleyball (nine). . . .

When interviewed as part of the investigation, the former faculty athletics representative asserted that he played an integral role in the eligibility certification process. He claimed that every year he formulated an independent eligibility checklist while conducting a thorough analysis of the eligibility status of each student-athlete. None of the individuals interviewed, who were integral to the academic certification process for student-athletes, corroborated the former faculty athletics representative's account of his role. . . .

The penalties adopted and imposed by the committee are as follows: . . .

2. Five years of probation commencing on October 29, 2008, and running through
October 28, 2013. (The institution proposed a four-year term of probation.)

3. Cancellation of the seasons of competition in the following sports during the
academic years noted: men's basketball (2004-05), women's basketball (2004-05),
men's tennis (2004-05), women's tennis (2004-05), men's cross country (2005-06)
and women's cross country (2005-06). (Institution imposed.) . . .

5. Pursuant to NCAA Bylaws 19.5.2.20-(e) and 31.2.2.3-(b), vacation of all contests
from the academic years 2000-01 through 2003-04 in which student-athletes
competed while ineligible. . . .

9. None of the institution's athletics teams shall be eligible for postseason competition during the 2009-10 academic year. But for the institution's substantial self- imposed penalties, including the cancellation of the competition seasons for various sports, this post-season ban would have been imposed for two academic
years.

If only the NCAA would unload similarly on big-money Division I schools, but I digress. I held off on posting until I could get official comment from UDC:

In response to the report, President Sessoms, who assumed the reigns at UDC just two months ago declares, “UDC understands and accepts today’s ruling by the NCAA Infractions Committee.” Sessoms further states, “The penalties proposed in the Committee’s report are consistent with our own recommendations and what we have already self-imposed. We understand that during the years 2000-2001 through 2003-2004 UDC failed to effectively carry out its responsibilities and obligations as a Division II member institution. UDC regrets that the violations occurred. The University has already taken proactive steps to ensure future compliance with all NCAA regulations.”

There is, however, one proactive step that UDC has not taken. The NCAA report also notes:

This case once again highlights the difficulty in one person serving as athletic director and the head coach of a sport. The committee believes that if an institution is committed to participation as a member of Division II, it should be willing to commit adequate resources for athletic administration, including a fulltime athletic director and compliance officer.

The acting Athletics Director at UDC is the head basketball coach, Julius Smith (who, it should be noted, arrived after the violations occurred). Lets hope that president Sessoms follows the NCAA's lead on this point.

Abuse of NCAA Transfer Rules

There is a must-read article by Dana O'Neil at ESPN.com on the abuse of hardship transfer waivers by coaches:

Last season, the NCAA granted immediate eligibility to Tyler Smith after he transferred from Iowa to Tennessee to be near his gravely ill father, who lived in Pulaski, Tenn.

The decision, invoking a hardship waiver that covers everything from injury to illness to financial hardship has been in place since 1991, was lauded by many as a student-friendly act on the part of the NCAA.

Like most paths paved with good intentions, this one has been trampled.

Players are coming out of the woodwork with ailing parents or other family members, begging to head back home … or at least in the extended geographic footprint of home.

It's got coaches piping mad on both sides of the tables, with some calling this just another example of savvy rule manipulation and circumvention, and others arguing it's an effort to do the right thing by a kid and, yes, perhaps by a program.

At Big East Media Day on Wednesday, Jim Boeheim and Bobby Gonzalez were separated by just a few tables but the two coaching peers may as well have walked 20 paces turned, and fired.

"To me the waiver makes absolutely no sense," said Boeheim, a National Association of Basketball Coaches board member who has been working with the NABC to convince the NCAA that the rule needs to be tossed. "It's the most ridiculous thing that's ever happened. If you need to come home to be with someone in your family who is sick, that's when you absolutely should sit out. How are you going to be with someone who is sick when you're playing basketball, going to practice and going to games?"

But Gonzalez, who has two players waiting in the wings, sees things a touch differently. Herb Pope, who came to Seton Hall from New Mexico State, is awaiting an appeal from the NCAA after his initial attempt at immediate eligibility was rejected, and Keon Lawrence, who transferred from Missouri to Seton Hall, is expected to file for a hardship waiver so he can play in the second semester.

Pope, from Pittsburgh, was shot four times while a senior in high school. He chose New Mexico State, Gonzalez said, to be far away from his hometown. But when coach Reggie Theus left for a job with the Sacramento Kings, Pope wanted to come home. . . .

The truth is Pope, a one-time Parade All-American, and Lawrence, who led Missouri in scoring last year, would turn bottom-feeding Seton Hall into a bona-fide player in the crowded Big East. The Pirates were picked to finish 13th in the 16-team league.

Critics argue that's all Gonzalez cares about, that the cry to do good by the kids is nothing more than a smoke screen to do good by his program.

To which Gonzalez, who is nothing if not a coaching maverick, replies, "And?"

"People like to say that I'm taking advantage of the rules to get a kid eligible. That's what every coach in America is doing," Gonzalez said. "It's so easy for all these coaches on the NABC board to sit here and say all this stuff about how this is wrong. Let me tell you something: If they had a 6-8 All-American and some rule they could use to get him eligible, it would be like they all of a sudden found religion or found Jesus."

Given his handling of the Michael Glover case, it is no great suprise that Gonzalez's response boils down to 'We will attempt to win at all costs since everyone else is.' It would be poetic justice if the NCAA took Gonzalez at his word; that this is primarily about the success of his program, not the welfare of Herb Pope, and denied the waiver.

Myles Brand and Newspeak

"The NCAA is at war with academic underachievement. The NCAA has always been at war with academic underachievement."

No, Myles Brand did not say that. But that was the first thing that came to mind when he issued his latest self-congratulatory missive on academic reform and student-athlete graduation rates. Although Dr. Brand does not have a history of taking criticism well, here is my response:

What are you going to believe...myth or the facts?

Do you want to continue believing the popular myth, the false perception, the uninformed bias that student-athletes as a lot are dumb jocks?

This is a classic straw man argument Myles. 'Dumb Jock' is your term. What critics are employing it?

Or do you want to believe the data that say student-athletes are, on average, graduating at higher rates from college than other students?

As I have noted before this is the truth. And it is a good story. Stick with it, but also do us all a favor and be open about the failures in NCAA athletics rather than white-washing them.

Last week, I wrote about the dumb jock myth. It has been around a long time. It pervades popular culture about the academic status of student-athletes. From the Broadway musical Good News in 1927 to Tom Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons in 2005, the perception persists that college athletes - especially football players and male basketball players - are coming to campus only to play sports and avoid classrooms.

The perception exists because it is partly true. Admit it and address it. Don't ignore it.

Commenting on last week's blog entitled "The 'Dumb Jock' Myth is Dumb," craigjjs wrote, "Right, the jocks are all Rhodes Scholars. Let's hear the stats for the major sports."

Okay, here are the facts when you look at the graduation rates released earlier this week. These are the rates that include the success and failure of transfer student-athletes (which the federal rates simply ignore as academic dropouts and undercount by more than 37,000 students annually).

But IGNORE students who leave eligible, but do not transfer. "The GSR also allows institutions to subtract student-athletes who leave their institutions prior to graduation as long as they would have been academically eligible to compete had they remained." Tell us Myles, what was the fate of the 18,655 students who, according to your own numbers, 'Left Eligible'? So long as they are excluded from your calculations the Graduation Success Rate will be no such thing. Unless, that is, you are a 1984 fan. Given this flaw, the statistics rolled out here are as meaningful as Stalinist production quotas:

For the freshmen football student-athletes in the Football Bowl Championship institutions (the ones who draw the most attention and the largest revenue producers) who entered in 2001, the graduation rate is 66 percent. Two-thirds of all football players graduate in six years (the same time span the federal government uses for all students).

Basketball student-athletes who were part of the same cohort at the same institutions graduated at 65 percent, one percentage point lower.

When you look at the entire class of freshmen from the 2001 cohort, the rate is 79 percent. Nearly eight of every 10 student-athletes earn a degree in six years. And every demographic is doing better than their counterparts in the student body (as measured by the federal calculation) except for white males who trail by two percentage points.

All of these numbers have been trending upward over the last six years. If, as I noted last week, you count student-athletes who return to school over a 10 year period, the graduation rate is 88 percent, almost nine of 10!

What is the graduation rate for all students over ten years? What is the graduation rate for all students under the GSR method? Your statistics are meaningless without a point of comparison.

So what, craigjjs contends. "You forgot to compare the majors when you cooked up your statistics. I would guess that the 'recreational science' and similar majors tend to receive higher grades and find graduating a bit easier than those of the serious students."

We had the same concern, so we looked at majors for Division I student-athletes in 2004. Student-athletes were underrepresented by about four percent compared to all other students in the humanities and by about 9 percent in sciences. They were overrepresented compared to all other students by about five percent in social sciences and three percent in business. Both groups were about the same in education majors.

Interesting information, but your analysis is begging. In fact it is nonexistent.

Across the spectrum of Division I, there is little evidence of "clustering," or disproportionate numbers of student-athletes in certain majors.

Let me be clear! You can find examples of football or men's basketball programs with unacceptably low graduation rates. You can also find teams where unexplainably large numbers of football or men's basketball athletes are clustered in certain majors.

So are you going to do anything about it? Will you, for example, address the General Studies Program at the University of Michigan?

But these examples are not the rule. They drive the myth. They are no more valid as a generalization than to argue that all student-athletes are great scholars, which some are.

Silly me for asking. I guess you are not going to anything about it except continue on your merry rhetorical way.

What we have seen during the last few years - and what we will see increasingly in the future - are trends that in time will have most teams in most sports at most institutions graduating above or well above the 60 percent threshold where other students on average graduate.

By what measure? Federal standards or your own confected numbers?

Why do we know this and what is the cause?

Caveat lector, self-congratulation ahead.

Four years ago, the presidents in Division I put in place the most comprehensive package of academic reforms ever in the history of college sports. The package had three key components:

* Higher standards--Entering freshmen had to present successful completion of 16 academic core courses in high school and a sliding-scale achievement on both grade-point average and standardized tests. Enrolled student-athletes had to make 20 percent progress each year toward a declared major (and one open to all students).

* Better metrics--We look at academic performance semester by semester to track whether members of a team are on course to graduate, and we examine the success or failure of all student-athletes, including transfers.

* Sanctions--Teams that fail to meet threshold requirements each year will lose scholarships and teams that fail to perform academically over time could lose additional scholarships, be withheld from post-season tournaments or even be decertified.

We've never taken such an approach before. There is no place for low-performing teams to run and hide. Next spring, the first post-season sanctions will be leveled against teams that show a pattern of academic underachieving and no improvement. If that fails to get the attention of coaches, athletics directors and presidents, the entire athletics program could be withheld from NCAA championships.

Forgive me for being underwhelmed by scholarship sanctions which can remove, at most, ten percent of the scholarships - which amounts to two basketball scholarships or nine football scholarships.

That's going to leave a mark.

Hardly. Especially when so many teams flunking by the NCAA's own standards are merely warned. Is the same approach going to be adopted where post-season eligibility is concerned?

Our goal from the outset has been to change behavior. We want student-athletes to get an education and graduate. We would rather reward improvement than punish low performance. But we are dead serious about better results.

If you are dead serious about better results, it is time to get dead serious about punishing low performance. Placing 100% rather than 10% of scholarships in jeopardy would be a good start.

The dumb jock myth has always been an unfortunate generalization that unfairly stigmatized the great majority of student-athletes, including the majority of football and male basketball athletes. And the academic reform effort currently underway makes it even more untrue.

So, what are you going to depend on now for your perception of college athletes as students...an uninformed bias that says all jocks are dumb or the undeniable data that shows on average student-athletes are doing as well or better than other students?

I am certainly not going to depend on YOUR data Myles; at the moment I have more trust in the government than I do in the NCAA.

It's a shame to let the facts get in the way of a good story, but they just don't support the myth that jocks are dumb.

Well done rhetorically Myles; begin and end with the straw man argument.

Soap Opera News; Random Misbehaviour; UD on Graduation Rates; D-Day for FSU

Oh, brother: Terry Bowden says Tommy didn't meet expectations

"So, did Tommy Bowden deserve what happened to him Monday? Unfortunately, yes," Terry Bowden wrote on Yahoo.com. "He deserved it because he, of all people, knew what to expect when he got into this business. We grew up in it.

"He knew what to expect when he went to Clemson. He knew that no matter where you go, there is an expectation of success that must be met. After nine years at Clemson, he knew exactly what those expectations were and he knew they had not been met."

Iowa coach Ferentz suspends son from all team activities

James Ferentz, a freshman offensive lineman, was cited by Iowa City Police for drinking underage early Friday morning.

In a statement, Kirk Ferentz said he was extremely disappointed with his son's behavior. He says his son is suspended from all team activities for an indefinite time and will also be required to attend counseling sessions and perform community service for the next six weeks.

G Fields, two freshman suspended indefinitely by Nevada

Nevada starting guard Brandon Fields and two incoming freshmen have been suspended from the basketball team indefinitely after being cited for misdemeanor petty larceny, Wolf Pack coach Mark Fox said Thursday.

London Giles, a 6-foot-3 guard from Dallas, and Ahyaro Phillips, a 6-8 forward from New Orleans, were suspended along with Fields after their release by Sparks police following an undisclosed incident on Wednesday, Fox said in a statement.

"I am extremely disappointed to learn of this situation," Fox said. "I do not know all of the facts right now and will not have any further comment until I have a better understanding of the situation."

What wonderful leadership from a returning starter. What wonderful leadership from their coach.

See the following posts by University Diaries on release of NCAA propaganda I mean graduation rates:

Snapshots from Home: Graduation Rates
San Diego State: The Gift that Keeps on Giving
Notes from the Intellectual Desert
Scathing Online Schoolmarm
The University UD Calls. . .

Meanwhile, FSU faces the NCAA Infractions Committee today. There is a good wrap-up of the story here by Andrew Carter of the Orlando Sentinel, and he is doing his best to live-blog the action here.

NCAA Dishes Latest Propaganda; IHE Swallows

On one hand I am quite happy. As a group, NCAA student-athletes continue to graduate at a rate of 64%, 2% better than the general student populations. On the other, it is disgraceful that the NCAA continues to utilize confected measures like the GSR, or 'Graduation Success Rates' to propagandize its success. Overall, the story is good, but this sort of Salt Bath Writing* serves another purpose - allowing the NCAA to ignore its areas of abject failure, since as graduation rates in Football and Men's Basketball which remain under 50%. What really makes my blood boil, however, is journalism on the latest data-manipulation efforts by the NCAA which reads like an NCAA press release. Such is the case with this article, published today at Inside Higher Ed:

Myles Brand, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, wants to cease the propagation of “the so-called ‘dumb jock’ myth,” as he puts it. Trumpeting new data showing that NCAA Division I athletes are graduating at the highest rates ever — even as players in high-profile sports such as baseball, football and men’s and women’s basketball continue to lag — Brand and other NCAA officials argue that recently adopted and stricter academic accountability rules are steadily sidelining old stereotypes.

How about someone from outside the NCAA? Did you bother to interview them? If so, why are they not quoted in the article?

The NCAA reports graduation rates for Division I athletes in two ways — the Department of Education-developed federal rate and an NCAA-developed “Graduation Success Rate.” The GSR, as it is called, was developed by the NCAA to assess long-term academic success at the request of many member colleges who found the federal graduation rates misleading. Unlike the federal figure, the GSR does not penalize institutions for departing transfers who leave in good academic standing; it also counts incoming transfer students and midyear enrollees.

Of course then. It must all be good. The dirty little secret is that the GSR "allows institutions to subtract student-athletes who leave their institutions prior to graduation as long as they would have been academically eligible to compete had they remained." In other words calling it a 'Graduation Success Rate' is Orwellian language at its best.

By counting these athletes, the GSR tracks about 28,000 more students than the 72,000 tracked by the federal graduation data. And since they take into account athletes who left their institutions in good standing, GSR percentages are higher than federal graduation rates in virtually all cases. Still, not all athletes who leave in good standing enter another institution. Todd Petr, NCAA managing director of research, said 90 percent of students in good standing who leave college transfer successfully to another institution.

Whoops, Todd let some of the fine print slip out. 90% 'Transfer Successfully', which does not, of course, mean that they graduate.

Both the federal and the NCAA metrics, however, determine their percentages based on the number of students who graduate within six years of entering college. . . .

Except that the GSR deliberately leaves some students out so the numbers can be inflated.

As the federal rate is the only method with which to compare athletes to other students — because no data comparable to the Graduation Success Rate exist — it shows that two percent more Division I athletes graduate in six years than the 62 percent national average for all students at Division I colleges and universities. . . .

At least the author of this article did not fall for comparing general student-body graduation rate with NCAA GSR data. That Apples to Oranges comparison is, of course, what the NCAA would like you to make.

“We are continuing to make progress on the aspirational goal, which I very much advocate, of an 80 percent GSR,” Brand said during a news conference in which he further detailed some of the statistical improvements in the seven years that the NCAA has used its own metric to determine graduation rates. “The ultimate success, though, is in the lives of the student-athletes themselves. Approximately 4,000 additional student-athletes graduated from college over the past six years because of these increased graduation rates and increased academic performance.” . . .

Myles Brand, why don't you make it an aspirational goal to achieve a graduation rate in all sports which is at least equal to the overall 62% graduation rate in the general student body? No need to answer. We know. That would undermine the revenue sports like Basketball and Football which ultimately pay your salary.


What all of this systematically ignores, however, are the immense advantages given to Student-Athletes. One wonders how well John and Jane Student would perform if they were given exclusive dorms, special refectories, access to free private tutoring, and were funneled into General Studies and Sports Management majors. A sight higher than 64% one would guess. Of course most student-athletes do not take those 'easy majors', but they are among the unfortunate friendly-fire casualties from the latest salvo of propaganda from the NCAA.

*See University Diaries for October 22, 2007

Link Roundup October 13

Gregg Doyel pleads: Don't Hose the Hoosiers

Indiana basketball is laying there, belly exposed, hands tied behind its back. The NCAA is standing overhead, holding a very large hammer. About to swing. Here it comes ...

Don't do it, NCAA. Please. Don't hammer Indiana. The Hoosiers have had enough. . . .

The NCAA is supposed to catch cheaters and see that they are punished, so let's do some inventory here. Indiana got caught -- check. Indiana has been punished -- check. But if the NCAA feels the need to flex its muscle later this month when it announces its findings against Indiana, here's an idea:

Show mercy to the innocents left behind at Indiana, and announce that Kelvin Sampson has received the NCAA's death penalty -- a lifetime ban from college sports. Can't coach again. Can't work in administration. Can't even walk into a college basketball arena to use the bathroom.

I wholeheardtedly agree with Doyel on Sampson, but the NCAA does need to make an example of Indiana.

Doug Lederman notes the on-field success of Northwestern and Vandy

Entering this weekend’s games, teams like Stanford and Rice have winning records in their conferences, and Duke University’s squad, long an Atlantic Coast Conference doormat, has a 3-2 record. . . .

But teams from two selective universities, in particular, are prompting most of the discussion about this being the year of the brainiac universities in big-time football. Vanderbilt and Northwestern are both undefeated, at 5-0, and both of them are ranked in the top 25 in at least one of the key college football polls (Vanderbilt in the low teens, and Northwestern just sneaking into the USA Today coaches’ poll at 22nd).

No thanks, Doug, for giving both teams the Insider Higher Ed kiss of death. Both teams lost on Saturday, with Mississippi State taking down Vanderbilt 17-14, and Michigan State whooping Northwestern 37-20.

University Diaries unleashes her latest tirade against San Diego State

If you’re University Diaries, it just doesn’t get any better than San Diego State University, a bottomless jockhole run by a president who can’t think of anything to do with the university other than run losing plays on its sports fields. Eaten out of house and home by athletics, SDSU has no money, poor academic quality, and shitty infrastructure. President Weber’s solution is to raise student fees enormously to pay … not for classrooms and professors, but for loser sports teams.

JoePa quietly coaches Penn State to a 7-0 record

MADISON, Wis. -- Forget the press box. Joe Paterno could have coached this one from his living room.

A sore hip relegated Paterno to a perch high above the field for the second week in a row -- and once again, not having their iconic leader on the sidelines didn't matter to No. 6 Penn State.

NCAA confirms penalties against Arizona State over staged fight

INDIANAPOLIS---The Administrative Committee of the NCAA Division I Championships/Sports Management Cabinet has upheld the sanctions imposed against the Arizona State baseball head coach, as well as two student-athletes, for their actions during the 2008 NCAA Division I Baseball Championship.

The sanctions stemmed from the altercation between Arizona State baseball student-athletes Brett Wallace and Ike Davis, in the moments before their 2008 Super Regional game against Fresno State University. Arizona State University had appealed the penalties assessed against head coach Pat Murphy and student-athletes Brett Wallace and Ike Davis.

Link Roundup October 2

The NCAA has reaffirmed penalties in two infractions cases:

The first, involving the University of Arkansas, surrounds the vacation of the 2004 and 2005 Outdoor Track and Field titles, in which Olympic sprinter Tyson Gay was instrumental. Arkansas, despite being a double-repeat violator, had whined that the penalties were excessive since they were the result of actions by a 'rogue assistant coach.' Kudos to the NCAA for standing its ground.

The second involves a show-cause coaching ban levied against former Long Beach State assistant basketball coach Reggie Howard, who was at the center of a doozy of an infractions case in which the judgment came down in March.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere:

There is an excellent post by SportsProf on Harvard basketball coach Tommy Amaker's continuing moves to upset the apple cart of Ivy League athletics.

University Diaries continues her chronicling of the criminal adventures of the University of Montana football team.

'Redefining' Division III?

WOW! A MOMENT ON TENURE-TRACK TO BLOG! Too bad it is the result of a sick day. . .


There is an interesting article at Inside Higher Education which should be required reading for anyone concerned with preserving NCAA Division III, which remains the last bastion of true amateurism in college sports. With the failure this spring of proposals that would have split Division III into two divisions, some institutions continue to advocate nixing its core principle:

"[Division III Institutions] Shall not award financial aid to any student on the basis of athletics leadership, ability, participation or performance."

From the article:

The Division III Presidents Council released a report last week outlining some of the key issues that the division must address as its membership continues to swell and now that proposals to create either a subdivision within it or a completely separate Division IV failed last spring. . . .

Perhaps most striking is the report’s notation that nearly two-thirds of the surveyed members of the division responded that “consideration of leadership in athletics (e.g., team captain) in the awarding of financial aid should be allowed provided it is consistent with the consideration of leadership in other student activities.” . . .

“I nearly fell off my chair when I saw that in the survey,” says John Fry, president of Franklin & Marshall College and chair of the President’s Council. “When one of your bedrock principles is in question, that’s more than a philosophical difference. What would separate us from Divisions I and II? One of the big differences between us is how we view financial aid. We put student first and athlete next. Frankly, if that changes, I don’t know what we’re doing.” . . .

This, ultimately, is the heart of the matter:

Some argue that enrollment pressures might cause a tuition-strapped institution — such as the profile of many new Division III members — to favor offering some sort of financial aid that considers athletic ability. Partial financial aid for athletic leadership might help these institutions garner more recruits and, in time, more revenue from their tuition. These institutions have a place, loyalists argue — just not in Division III.

“If financial aid is driving enrollment, then there’s another option for those schools, and that’s Division II,” says James T. Harris, president of Widener University and a member of the Division III President’s Council. “I can’t foresee a day when Division III would allow athletic scholarships. I don’t think that’s a reasonable future.”

EXCELLENT. And it should be noted that any athlete at a Division III school is perfectly welcome, and indeed encouraged, to apply for need-based financial aid. It is, of course, the only reason that a middle-class kid like myself was able to attend, and ski at a college like Bates, where the comprehensive fee this year hit $49,350.

Michael Glover, Seton Hall, and Diploma Mills

The NCAA is almost invariably reactive rather proactive when dealing with serious problems. That said, they should be applauded for their moves to reject high school transcripts from a number of private schools which have been tarred, in most cases not unjustly, as Diploma Mills. For background see these articles in the Washington Post, and the New York Times. Now, Seton Hall recruit Michael Glover, whose senior year coursework at American Christian Academy was invalidated, is suing the NCAA and the Big East:

Michael Glover, the Seton Hall basketball recruit who was unable to play last season when the NCAA declared him an academic non-qualifier, is suing the NCAA and the Big East in an effort to get himself declared eligible to play for Seton Hall this upcoming season.

According to the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Providence -- where the Big East offices are located -- Glover is seeking to have the NCAA reverse its prior ruling and declare him qualified to play, and to receive an athletic scholarship. He is also seeking to be awarded financial damages equivalent to the cost of four years' tuition at Seton Hall, plus punitive damages for his having missed the 2007-08 season.

Last fall, the NCAA decided to invalidate Glover's senior year at American Christian.

That made Glover a non-qualifier, but after he appealed the decision, he was allowed to practice with the team for a while at the start of the season. However, in December, the NCAA denied Glover's final appeal, making him ineligible to play and ineligible to receive scholarship money from the school. According to NCAA rules, the only way for Glover to qualify to play Division 1 would be to go to a junior college and receive his associate's degree, then transfer to a four-year school. . . .

Unsurprisingly, the story is rather deeper than the academic, eligibility, and legal travails of one prospective student-athlete. American Christian Academy closed its High School this summer:

American Christian Academy, a tiny private school in Aston, was known nationally last winter for having one of the best high-school-age basketball players in the country.

On Thursday, the school is expected to eliminate its high school academic and athletic programs - including basketball - in a swirl of controversy.

American Christian, which officials said would continue to operate its day-care center and programs for youngsters in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade, allowed postgraduates to play on its teams for the last two years. School officials were expected to leave postgraduates off the teams next season. Now, it seems, there won't be any teams at all. . . .

"We have not been given any reason whatsoever of why the school is closing except that it's financially better to close the school," boys' basketball coach Tony Bergeron said. "In my estimation, that doesn't make any sense."

Bergeron helped develop Tyreke Evans into one of the nation's top players. Evans, the most valuable player at this year's McDonald's All-America Game, is expected to play next season at Memphis.

But the boys' basketball program has drawn criticism. Former coach Ray Carroll publicly criticized American Christian's academic standards for many of his former players, including Evans, after he was fired in June 2006, after one season. Carroll suggested that the school was a diploma mill.

Recent comments made by Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez to Andy Katz at ESPN also illustrate the primary thing driving all of this. In the hyper-competitive world of revenue NCAA sports, coaches choose, or are forced, to take both short cuts and risks with athletes who are academically marginal:

Bobby Gonzalez is clear that in order for Seton Hall to be competitive in the 16-team Big East, he's got to take a gamble or two.

The third-year Pirates coach isn't hiding from his objective. He accepted two high-profile transfers within the past week -- Keon Lawrence from Missouri and Herb Pope from New Mexico State -- with the hope that both will be eligible for this season. . . .

"If you want to get into the top six or seven in this conference, you've got to be creative and you've got to take transfers. I'm not sure what they're saying about Gonzo, saying that I'm taking too many borderline guys, a gamble. But the [Seton Hall] president backs me, and I feel they're all worth the gamble.". . .

Gonzalez said Lawrence won't be academically eligible until after the first semester because the junior doesn't have enough transferable credits from Missouri. He would have to pass 15 credits in the first semester to be eligible by mid-December, the coach said. . . .

Meanwhile, Gonzalez is waiting to see if Michael Glover, who was declared ineligible last year at Seton Hall, would win his lawsuit against the Big East and the NCAA to gain eligibility.

"If he were eligible last year we would have won 20 games, not 17; he could have been an all-rookie Big East [player]," Gonzalez said of the 17-15 Pirates last season. "He definitely would be a major impact guy. Who knows? We could believe in miracles and get Keon Lawrence, Michael Glover and Herb Pope [this season]."

It would be great for Seton Hall basketball. It would be great for Bobby Gonzalez. Who else does Gonzalez's gambling serve?

University of Nevada: In the Clear on Gambling Allegations?

Yep. According to the University of Nevada at least:

The University of Nevada athletic program said Tuesday that the NCAA's 10-month investigation into the university's athletic program has found no lack of institutional control and no gambling-related issues.

"Obviously our department is elated with this decision," Nevada athletic director Cary Groth said. "We feel that we do an excellent job with compliance, and integrity is at the forefront of everything that we do and we were pleased with the findings." . . .

Findings, that is, that have not been released by the NCAA. Of course Groth's statement leaves the possibility that there WILL be findings in this investigation which go beyond gambling and the dreaded 'lack of institutional control'.

The NCAA launched an investigation into the program after the women's soccer coach filed a whistle-blower complaint alleging she was fired in retaliation for reporting rules violations within the Nevada athletic department. The most damning allegation claimed that men's golf coach Rich Merritt, who has since resigned, bet on sports. . . .

This is the most interesting angle on the story that remains. For her part, the women's soccer coach has not one, but three blogs up and running here, here, and here, where her side of the story has been extensively detailed. Her current reaction?

The women's soccer coach said Tuesday that "given all of the information concerning gambling and the lack of institutional control provided to the NCAA, this news is unbelievable."
She said she supplied the NCAA with information she believes supports her claims, and that the university is not completely out of the clear.
"The NCAA Committee on Infractions has the final say and can hand down additional charges," she said. "I look forward to what the NCAA Committee of Infractions has to say about this information."
When asked if she had contacted the women's soccer coach since being cleared of the two main allegations, Groth said: "She has nothing to do with this. This is an NCAA investigation."

NCAA talks the talk on Junior College Transfers

Coaches attempting to strengthen teams whether for routine purposes, or to fill gaps caused by transfers, coaching changes, or academic disqualification have increasingly turned towards recruiting players from two-year colleges. This process is often not in the best interests of the student-athletes involved, and has placed several Universities in hot water, most recently the University of New Mexico. This is one of several issues upon which the NCAA is now talking the talk. Do not hold your breath on them walking the walk:

Division I Academic Cabinet members determined that transfers from two-year colleges, nontraditional coursework and academic support services at institutions are among their top priorities in the coming months.

The new cabinet met for the first time September 8-9 in Indianapolis.

One of the major issues the group will tackle will be the challenges presented by student-athletes who transfer from a two-year to a four-year institution.

Cabinet members will examine the recommendations of the Division I Transfer Issues Ad Hoc Group, and consider items like additional core-course requirements for 2-4 transfers, the idea of an academic year in residence and other recommendations. The cabinet emphasized the importance of data on which to base decisions, and went so far as to ask the Committee on Academic Performance to collect more data related to the academic profile of a successful 2-4 transfer.

The group would also like to learn more about nontraditional coursework on campuses, including best practices, and academic support programs available to student-athletes. The cabinet identified a few members to work with the NCAA research staff and representatives from academic partner organizations on developing a survey to find out more about academic support programs in Division I.

Cabinet members also said they would focus on student-athlete time demands and degree-selection issues.

No Sunshine in Florida?

Mike Bianchi at the Orlando Sentinel continues to be a thorn in the side of Florida State. Kudos:

Not much sunshine in Orlando this week because of Tropical Storm Fay.

Not much Sunshine in Tallahassee either due to another tropical storm on the horizon -- a top-secret list of alleged NCAA violations.

The Sunshine we're talking about is the State of Florida's Sunshine Law, which Florida State is once again trying to finagle around amid an academic fraud scandal that has turned into a national embarrassment for the Seminoles and their athletic department.

A quick legal briefing: Our state's Government-in-the-Sunshine law and corresponding Open Records Act provide almost unfettered and timely public access to documents, tapes, photographs and just about everything else generated by state-funded agencies. . . .

But, so far, Florida State has dragged its feet in releasing a key document that could provide some answers. That document -- the NCAA's Notice of Allegations (NOA) -- is a list of the alleged NCAA violations that occurred amid a cheating scandal involving university employees and more than 60 athletes.

FSU received the NOA two months ago and multiple media outlets, including the Sentinel, have requested its release. . . .

You would think the school would have learned its lesson about the Sunshine Law during the gambling investigation of starting quarterback Adrian McPherson a few years ago. That's when a school administrator actually admitted he didn't take notes during an internal investigation because he was intentionally trying to circumvent the Sunshine Law.

It was this sort of clandestine activity that fueled the perception FSU was trying to cover up the McPherson mess. Which is why President T.K. Wetherell claimed from that point on Florida State would be more open, less secretive. . . .

I have praised you in the past T.K. Why the letdown?


Series:
1. FSU Cheating Scandal
2. Florida State Scandal: Kudos to President Wetherell
3. STUDENT-Athlete Garrett Johnson Fires Both Barrels
4. No Sunshine in Florida?
5. FSU Scandal: Brenda Monk Breaks Her Silence

NCAA Selection: What the Committee got Wrong

Congratulations to the NCAA selection committee for getting things mostly right this year, especially granting a deserving South Alabama an at-large bid. One could nit-pick endlessly and fruitlessly over seeding, but it is important to highlight the most significant things that they got wrong. These are part of an unhealthy trend.


Sins of Omission

The failure of the committee to grant Illinois State an at-large bid was the most significant sin of omission this year (a much weaker argument could be made for Dayton). Granted, Illinois State’s most significant wins, sweeps of in-conference opponents Creighton and Southern Illinois were not against NCAA tournament opponents. But it should be noted that 5 NCAA tournament teams, Butler, Drake, Indiana, St. Mary’s, and Western Kentucky visited the home floor of Southern Illinois this season. Only Butler and Indiana were victorious, and Butler’s victory came on a miracle buzzer-beating tre. Illinois State visited Southern Illinois on March 1 and came away with a 57-49 victory.

Illinois State also posted six more wins than two teams which made the field, Arizona and Oregon. Each of these teams finished poorly, with Oregon going 6-6 and Arizona 4-8 in the metric which the committee utilizes (digging a bit further back, Oregon lost 9 of its last 15). Illinois State finished 9-3, with two of those losses coming against #5 NCAA tournament seed Drake. The inclusion of Arizona and Oregon smacks of pandering to the BCS conferences, which have been progressively elbowing out the others when at-large bids are handed out.


Sins of Commission

The following represent the pairings for non-BCS teams in the seeding mid-range:

5 Notre Dame v. 12 George Mason
5 Michigan State v. 12 Temple
5 Drake v. 12 Western Kentucky
6 Oklahoma v. 11 Saint Joseph’s
7 Gonzaga v. 10 Davidson
7 Butler v. 10 South Alabama
7 Miami v. 10 Saint Mary’s
8 UNLV v. 9 Kent State
8 BYU v. 9 Texas A&M

Is this entirely incidental? I hope so. But it is certainly suspicious that a disproportionate number of these pairings automatically prevent non-BCS teams from advancing to the second round. This phenomenon is a continuation from last year, when the committee managed to place three non-BCS teams with a national ranking, Creighton, Memphis, and Nevada, all within the same initial pod of four teams.


The committee should, however, be thank for their work and it should be noted that no matter what they do, the upsets always seem to come. Let the madness begin!

March Madness: Projecting the Field

Here is the field of 65 as I would choose it:


Auto-Bids:

American Patriot; Arkansas or Georgia SEC; Austin Peay OVC; Belmont Atlantic Sun; Boise State WAC; Butler Horizon; Cal State Fullerton Big West; Clemson or North Carolina ACC; Coppin State MEAC; Cornell Ivy; Davidson Southern; Drake MVC; George Mason CAA; Illinois or Wisconsin Big 10; Kansas or Texas Big 12; Kent State MAC; Maryland Baltimore County America East; Memphis CUSA; Mississippi Valley State SWAC; Mt. Saint Mary’s NEC; Northwestern State or Texas Arlington Southland; Oral Roberts Summit; Pittsburgh Big East; Portland State Big Sky; San Diego WCC; Siena Mid-American; Temple A10; UCLA Pac 10; UNLV MWC; Western Kentucky Sun Belt; Winthrop Big South.


At-Large Bids:

Marginal teams not included in the Bubble Breakdown below are discussed, as are the implications of today’s games.

(Arkansas SEC) – Arkansas will take this spot only if they lose today in the finals of the SEC tournament.
Baylor Big 12 – Baylor was a mediocre 9-7 in conference, and had only a 3-8 record versus the top 50, but picked up only one bad loss and had a solid 9-6 RD/NT record.
BYU MWC – Brigham Young only has two top 50 wins, but was the regular season champion of a top-ten RPI conference, and reached its conference finals.
Clemson or North Carolina ACC – One of these teams will take the ACC auto-bid, the other is a safe at-large candidate.
Connecticut Big East
Dayton A10
Duke ACC
Georgetown Big East
Gonzaga WCC
Illinois State MVC – The explicit rationale for including Air Force in 2006 was that it was ‘The #2 team in the #8 RPI conference.” This describes Illinois State this year, which compared to Air Force in 2006, also has two more top 50 wins, an RPI 17 spots better, and a non-conference Strength of Schedule 156 spots better. Illinois State also reached the finals of its tournament, unlike Air Force, which crashed out in the first round.
Indiana Big 10
Kansas or Texas Big 12 – One of these teams will take the ACC auto-bid, the other is a safe at-large candidate.
Kansas State Big 12
Kentucky Big 12 - There might be a question if the bubble were stronger this year, but the 12-5 conference record coupled with 9-3 down the stretch clearly gets Kentucky in.
Louisville Big East
Marquette Big East
Miami ACC – Miami was mediocre 8-8 in conference after an 11-0 start, including three bad losses, but did pick up quality wins against Duke and Clemson.
Michigan State Big 10
Mississippi State SEC – Mississippi State went only 2-7 versus the RPI top 50, and had one bad loss, but did top the SEC West.
Notre Dame Big East
Oklahoma Big 12
Purdue Big 10 – A bubble candidate? No given the 2nd placed finish in the Big 10 and a 5-4 record versus the top 50. But Purdue’s 4 bad losses will not likely be overlooked when it comes to seeding.
Saint Joseph’s A10 – Entering the A10 tournament, St. Joseph’s looked like a dead duck after losing 6 of their previous 9 games. The run to the finals, including a win against Xavier probable puts them in given the 5-6 record versus the top 50.
South Alabama Sun Belt – Granted, two of South Alabama’s top 50 wins were against in-conference Western Kentucky, and they picked up some bad losses. The crucial thing is that South Alabama showed they could defeat tough opposition out of conference when they took down Mississippi State. It should also be noted that South Alabama stretched Vanderbilt to two overtimes on the road.
Stanford Pac 10
St. Mary’s WCC
Tennessee SEC
Texas A&M Big 12 – Despite the mediocre 8-8 conference record, Texas A&M went 5-7 versus the RPI top 50, and picked up no bad losses.
USC Pac 10
Vanderbilt SEC
Washington State Pac 10
West Virginia Big East
(Wisconsin Big 10) Wisconsin will take this spot only if they lose in the finals of the Big 10 tournament
Xavier A10


Multiple Bid Conferences:

Big East: 7 or 8
Big 12: 6
SEC: 5 or 6
Pac 10: 4 or 5
Big 10: 4 or 5
ACC: 4
Atlantic 10: 4
West Coast: 3
Missouri Valley: 2
Mountain West: 2
Sun Belt: 2


Bubble Discussion

Kansas State Big 12 (19-11; RPI 49; SOS 33; 3-6 1-50; 5-7 last 12; 10-7 in conference; 1 bad loss; 5-9 RD/NT)
The fact that a resume like this puts you on the right side of the bubble this year illustrates the mediocrity of this years' bubble teams. It is also a wonderful illustration of why there is no need to expand the number of teams in the tournament field. The top 50 wins and the 10-7 conference record trump the awful 5-7 record down the stretch.

Dayton A10 (21-10; RPI 32; SOS 34; 4-4 1-50; 6-6 last 12; 9-9 in conference; 4 bad losses; 7-7 RD/NT)
Once again, these numbers are mediocre. But Dayton will probably benefit from the fact that they were missing key personnel during the mid-season slump which saw them fall from 14-1 to 17-9.

----------------------------- Cut Line #1 (Valid with losses by Arkansas and Wisconsin)
Villanova Big East (20-12; RPI 51; SOS 48; 4-7 1-50; 7-5 last 12; 10-10 in conference; 4 bad losses; 8-9 RD/NT)
Why does Villanova beat out the following teams? Principally because it was not AS hopeless as the other teams discussed here going down the stretch.

----------------------------- Cut Line #2 (Valid with a loss by Arkansas or Wisconsin)
Arizona State Pac 10 (19-12; RPI 83; SOS 77; 6-7 1-50; 5-7 last 12; 9-10 in conference; 2 bad losses; 6-8 RD/NT)
I hate seeing teams with negative records in conference and down the stretch, especially when they shopped around for the #296 non-conference SOS in the country. But Arizona State is more deserving than any of the teams which follow it. I have them in over Oregon barely (they split the head to head match ups this season) on the strength of quality wins and RD/NT record.

----------------------------- Cut Line #3 (Valid with wins by Arkansas and Wisconsin)
Oregon Pac 10 (18-13; RPI 58; SOS 37; 3-6 1-50; 6-6 last 12; 9-10 in conference; 2 bad losses; 6-10 RD/NT)
Syracuse Big East (19-13; RPI 55; SOS 9; 3-8 1-50; 6-6 last 12; 9-10 in conference; 2 bad losses; 5-8 RD/NT)
The RD/NT record and the more mediocre top 50 record keep Syracuse out.
Mississippi SEC (21-10; RPI 46; SOS 64; 5-3 1-50; 5-7 last 12; 7-10 in conference; 6 bad losses; 7-8 RD/NT)
Mississippi has a 5-3 record versus the top 50, but their bad losses and a conference record 3 games short of .500 should keep them out.
Florida State ACC (19-14; RPI 59; SOS 15; 3-6 1-50; 6-6 last 12; 8-10 in conference; 3 bad losses; 6-10 RD/NT)
Out as a result of their negative conference and RD/NT records, and the bad losses.
Arizona Pac 10 (18-14; RPI 38; SOS 2; 5-8 1-50; 4-8 last 12; 9-11 in conference; 2 bad losses; 8-8 RD/NT)
This one is painful. But a team that goes 4-8 in its last 12 does not deserve to be in.


Out

Charlotte A10 – 5 bad losses
Creighton MVC – 1-7 versus the top 50
Massachusetts A10 – 1-5 versus the top 50
New Mexico MWC – 1-4 versus the top 50
Ohio State Big 10 – 2-10 versus the top 50
Southern Illinois MVC – 6 bad losses, 5-10 RD/NT record
UAB CUSA – 0-2 versus the top 50
Virginia Commonwealth CAA – 0-2 versus the top 50
Virginia Tech ACC – 1-7 versus the top 50. To Seth Greenburg: I have immense respect for you. You are one of the good guys in College Basketball. But leaving out a team that failed to take all but one of its chances to defeat a top 50 team does not make one certifiable.


UPDATE 3:20 PM

Texas Arlington has defeated Northwestern State 82-79 in the Southland Conference finals to make the field.

Projected play in game:
Mississippi Valley State (SWAC) v. Mount Saint Mary's (NEC)

With North Carolina defeating Clemson 86-81 in the ACC finals, I can now project the top eight seeds:

#1 Seeds:
1. North Carolina ACC
2. Memphis CUSA
3. UCLA P10
4. Texas/Kansas winner B12

#2 Seeds:
1. Texas/Kansas loser B12
2. Tennessee SEC
3. Georgetown Big East
4. Wisconsin Big 10


UPDATE 4:35 PM

The play in game has been announced:
Coppin State (MEAC) v. Mount Saint Mary's (NEC)


UPDATE 5:36 PM

Kansas has defeated Texas 84-74 and has probably earned themselves a #1 seed.

Illinois has fallen to Wisconsin 61-48 and fails to steal a bid.

Georgia 66
Arkansas 57
final

Congratulations to Georgia on stealing a bid. Given that coach Dennis Felton has been under fire for doing things right, it could not have happened to a more deserving team.

ASU Baseball: Jason Jarvis Declared Ineligible

The first direct fallout from the looming scandal at Arizona State has landed, with pitcher Jason Jarvis being declared academically ineligible to compete:

Arizona State closer Jason Jarvis on Wednesday was ruled ineligible for the rest of the season, a decision that very likely ends his college career.

An appeal last week of a first-semester grade in an online music course upheld that Jarvis, a sophomore who had two saves this season and 11 last year, did not follow directions while taking an exam. That led to a grade lower than what he needed to be eligible.

Since Jarvis has disclosed that he took all online tests in similar fashion, he would likely face a number of grade changes that “would make it impossible for him to regain his eligibility,” coach Pat Murphy said. . . .

“Jason was not found guilty of academic dishonesty,” Murphy said. “When you look at the entire situation, the conclusion you reach is that at best, this is unfortunate. At worst, it’s unfair.”

The 6-foot-2, 195-pounder had been granted temporary eligibility before the second game of the season, against Vanderbilt on Feb. 23, pending resolution of his appeal.

For his part, Jason Jarvis blames the ASU administration, and hopes to enter the MLB draft:

A short time ago I requested a hearing to appeal a grade change which resulted in the A that I rightfully earned, being dropped to an XE on an Internet music course that I took in the fall of 2007. An XE grade indicates academic dishonesty which I did not commit. My appeal was upheld and I was exonerated for the academic dishonesty. However, the Herberger College of the Arts will not restore my grade back to the A that I rightfully earned so I will get no credit for taking the 3 credit class. According to the NCAA regulations, I am now considered academically ineligible for the 2008 baseball season. I could stay in school and regain my eligibility next year, however, I am continually amazed with the inconsistent way the ASU administration randomly executes their rules to suit themselves with no care whatsoever for the student. So, rather than continue to struggle through the academic bureaucracy at ASU I have decided to pursue a career in professional baseball and I am currently in the process of petitioning the commissioner of MLB to approve me to enter this years amateur draft in June.

The glaring omission in this statement is, of course, what the A mark was changed to. . .

Series:
1. Arizona State: Scandal Looming in Baseball Program
2. Arizona State Baseball: Jason Jarvis Speaks Out
3. ASU Baseball: Cheating in Online Music Course?
4. ASU Baseball: Jason Jarvis Declared Ineligible