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Division I men’s basketball to get
academic treatment
By Greg Johnson
The NCAA News
On the heels of a successful process to recommend
changes that improve the academic culture in college baseball,
NCAA President Myles Brand has announced a project
team to carry out similar orders in men’s basketball.
The
Division I Men’s Basketball Academic Enhancement
Group will begin meeting in August to assess factors
That contribute to the current
academic climate in men’s basketball and develop strategies to
enhance performance
and graduation rates. Dan Guerrero, director of
athletics at the University of
California, Los Angeles, will chair
the 27-member group that includes four presidents,
seven head coaches, four commissioners, eight athletics
directors, three faculty athletics representatives
and an administrator from the National Association of Basketball
Coaches.
The
presidents on the group are Walter Harrison of the University of Hartford,
Sidney Ribeau of Bowling
Green State University,
Stephen Weber of San
Diego State University and Robert Buininks
of the University
of Minnesota,
Twin Cities.
Brand
has asked the enhancement group to submit recommendations and proposals
to the Division I Board of
Directors by the end of 2008.
“It
is essential that NCAA constituent groups work together to evaluate the
causes and develop meaningful
strategies to improve academic performance in
men’s basketball,” Brand said. “Academic reform
is here to
stay and we need to work together to aggressively
develop and implement solutions that ensure basketball
student-athletes are as
successful in the classroom as they are on the court.”
Specifically,
the enhancement group will:
- Analyze available data, research and
literature regarding academic performance trends in Division I
men’s
basketball;
- Identify characteristics and factors that may
impair student-athletes’ academic performance;
- Identify changes that would enhance academic
performance and graduation rates; and
- Communicate with and seek reaction from the
NCAA governance structure, the NABC membership
and conference offices.
The three-year average Academic Progress Rate for
men’s basketball is the lowest among all NCAA sports.
Baseball, which also has languished in APR standing,
attracted attention last year when the Board appointed
a working group to assess baseball’s unique
climate and recommend changes. The Board in April approved
that group’s four-pronged reform package that
affects transfer policies, eligibility certification and distribution
of grants-in-aid.
Crucial
in the working group’s recommendations were data showing that
many baseball student-athletes
entered college with solid academic credentials but
slipped once enrolled. Baseball also exhibited a high
transfer rate, which led to the Board adopting a
working group recommendation to eliminate the one-time
transfer
exception.
Men’s
basketball, along with women’s basketball, football and
men’s ice hockey, already requires a year in
residence after transfer.
Brand
said the men’s basketball group will study the academic climate
in the sport carefully. “We are not
interested in changing the people who play on the
court,” he said. “We are interested in helping those who
play be successful.”
As
chair, Guerrero will borrow from his experience as a member of the
baseball working group.
“Our
job was to move forward with recommendations that could be evaluated by
the Board of Directors and
would in fact have an impact on the sport,”
Guerrero said of the baseball group’s charge. “We
identified those
issues
unique to baseball. We will do the same with men’s
basketball.”
Guerrero
also is a current member of the Division I Men’s Basketball
Committee.
Brand
said the basketball group will use the baseball group as a model.
“One
of the lessons we learned with baseball is there are issues specific to
the sport that when addressed
are more likely to lead to success,” Brand
said. “We want to make sure we have a strong foundation in the
research necessary to understand what
drives academic performance in basketball. Once that is accomplished,
the working group can make specific recommendations
to the Board about what is necessary to improve.”
Brand
said the basketball group will meet August 10 in Indianapolis. The group will provide
updates regularly
to the Board during the course of the project.
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