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NCAA proposes Academic Standards for Post Season Play

Postby ponyscott » Fri Aug 12, 2011 7:05 am

The NCAA on Thursday ( yesterday) endorsed a landmark proposal to require teams in all its Division I sports to hit an academic benchmark to be eligible for the postseason, the first step in a promised series of reforms.

This applies to Basketball first, but look soon for the football Bowl games to be addressed as well.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... gibility/1


To play in the NCAA tournament, you'll have to make the grade

By Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY

NCAA tournament hopefuls still must cut it on the basketball court -- win enough games against the right mix of opponents -- to make the field in March.

Soon, they'll also have to make the grade in the classroom.

The NCAA on Thursday endorsed a landmark proposal to require teams in all its Division I sports to hit an academic benchmark to be eligible for the postseason, the first step in a promised series of reforms.

The requirement: a four-year average Academic Progress Rate (APR) of 930, measuring how well teams keep players in school, keep them eligible and ultimately graduate them. The NCAA says that roughly portends a 50% graduation rate.

Ten teams that reached the NCAA men's basketball tournament last March fell beneath a 930 APR, including eventual champion Connecticut, third-seeded Syracuse and Sweet 16 qualifier Florida State. All told, one in every 20 men's teams in the more than 340-member Division I came up short.

University of Hartford President Walt Harrison, who heads the NCAA committee that oversees academic issues, said there's also interest in applying the cutoff to football bowls, which aren't run by the association. At 930, that would have affected six of last season's 70 bowl participants and 17 of 120 major-college teams overall.

Among the latter were six teams from marquee conferences -- Maryland and North Carolina State from the Atlantic Coast, Louisville from the Big East, Michigan from the Big Ten and Colorado and Washington State from the Pacific 12 -- plus newly independent Brigham Young.

The benchmark will be phased in, Harrison said, starting lower and rising to a 930 APR over 3-5 years. Details will be worked out in the next two months.

Waivers will be minimal to nonexistent, he said.

"This is all about making sure that student-athletes are students," NCAA President Mark Emmert said.

The move drew praise from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who for more than a year and a half has called for the NCAA to bounce academically underperforming teams from its basketball tournament and other championships.

"Many experts were skeptical that the NCAA would ever move to deal with the problem of low graduation rates among a small minority of tournament teams," Duncan said. "But they were wrong. College presidents have acted courageously and are leading the way."
Last edited by ponyscott on Fri Aug 12, 2011 7:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: NCAA proposes Academic Standards for Post Season Play

Postby Water Pony » Fri Aug 12, 2011 7:07 am

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Re: NCAA proposes Academic Standards for Post Season Play

Postby Mexmustang » Fri Aug 12, 2011 8:24 am

SMU will still have to have programs available for athletes similar to other schools to keep us on an even plane. Right now our athletes have to get a C+ in Biochemistry, while an athlete, even at Stanford, Rice or TCU only have to get a C+ in Phys Ed. (not quite true of course, but you get the drift, they all have special degree programs for athletes). Where does a student go to get a degree if the business school requires a 3.35 to enter or the school of education a 2.6? We still have to get a degree program for our athletes (and Meadows students). That is what remains on June's agenda. It was promised and yet still not delivered. We all but fixed most of the admittance issues, so that's next? Turner has said OK, but you have to fund it, essentially a pocket veto. I don't completely understand the issue, as to why we need special funding to simply start with a general degree program so that the students can stay in Dedman and take any class at any school without damaging an individual school's GPA or SAT statistics? This way an average student could take accounting or business courses or courses in the Department of Education without actually getting a degree from the school, but from the university.
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