KEY RESEARCH FINDINGS PRESENTED

Division I Men’s Basketball Academic Enhancement Working Group

August 10, 2007

1. Graduation Rates. Among Division I sports, men’s basketball currently has the lowest graduation rate by the federal metric at 45% (the only other sport below 50% is baseball at 46%). When transfers in and out are taken into account, the resulting graduation success rate (GSR) for men’s basketball is 59%, which is 6 percentage points lower than both baseball and football. Note that these graduation rates are for student-athletes entering college in 1996-1999, which are the most recent graduation rates available.

2. APR. The aggregate academic progress rate (APR) in men’s basketball for the past three years is 928. The only other sports with three-year aggregate APRs below 950 are football at 931, baseball at 935 and wrestling at 937.

3. Prediction of GSR from APR. Both eligibility and retention are statistically significant predictors of a squad’s GSR and federal graduation rate. Retention is a stronger predictor of the federal rate and eligibility is a stronger predictor of GSR, but statistical accuracy is maximized by including both components in the calculation of APR.

4. Impact of APR 900/925 Benchmarks. Approximately 5% of men’s basketball teams fell below the 900 benchmark and 11% were below the 925 benchmark on three-year APR with the squad size adjustment. If the squad size adjustment, which disappears next year when four years of APR data are available, had not been applied this year 22% of men’s basketball teams would have been below 900 and 44% would have had scores below 925.

5. APR Trends. The sports of baseball and football have shown an upward trend in APR over the past three years (the one-year rates in baseball were 932, 934 and 939 for the 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06 academic years; in football, those numbers were 929, 930 and 933). Men’s basketball has not shown a similar upward trend in APR over the three-year measurement period (929, 927 and 926).

6. Eligibility Trends. Despite increases to the progress toward degree standards beginning in 2003-04, eligibility rates have remained fairly constant in most sports including baseball (940, 939 and 940 during 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06), football (922, 921 and 923 over those three years) and men’s basketball (937, 935 and 935).

7. Retention Trends. Retention rates are lowest in men’s basketball and have trended downward in contrast to what has been observed in most other sports. In 2003-04, retention rates were 934 in football, 919 in baseball and 918 in men’s basketball. The rates for 2005-06 were 936 in football, 928 in baseball and 907 in men’s basketball.

8. Two-Year College Transfer Volume. About 13% of current Division I student-athletes are transfers from 2-year or 4-year schools. Of those transfers, 46% transferred from a 2-year college and 54% came from a 4-year college. Men’s basketball has the highest rate of transfer at 28%; only baseball currently has a similar transfer rate. Almost two-thirds (64%) of incoming transfers in basketball are from 2-year colleges.

9. High School. Average high school grades and ACT/SAT scores of incoming first-year men’s basketball players are slightly lower than among incoming football players in Division I and much lower in comparison to males in other sports.

10. Initial Eligibility Standards. The average academic profile of prospective student-athletes in men’s basketball has not changed substantially since the ACT/SAT cut-off score was removed in 2003. Although a number of Division I men’s basketball players enter college with low test scores (e.g., close to 40% with SAT scores below 900), those student-athletes with low test scores but high school grades above the sliding scale academically outperform student-athletes entering college with high test scores but lower high school grades (e.g., between 2.0 and 2.5).

11. Credit-Hour Accumulation. Men’s basketball players tend to accumulate more credit hours in their first year of college than baseball or football players. Even after discounting remedial credits, the typical men’s basketball player earns more credit hours in their first year of college than the average Division I student-athlete. This appears to be due in part to use of summer school and the summer bridge program.

12. First-Year GPA. The average first-year GPA of men’s basketball players (2.53 for student-athletes entering as freshmen in 2005-06) is lower than for student-athletes generally (2.80 in 2005-06) but similar to the average GPA in football and wrestling.

13. Two-Year College Transfer Performance. On average, 2-year college transfers in men’s basketball have much lower high school GPAs and standardized test scores (e.g., more than a quarter-point lower in GPA and 100 points lower on the SAT) than entering freshman or transfers from 4-year colleges. A large proportion of 2-year transfers (39% of those submitting complete information to the Initial Eligibility Clearinghouse during high school) were not Division I academic qualifiers out of high school. In college, 2-year transfers in men’s basketball tend to have lower GPAs and earn fewer credits than other student-athletes in the sport.

14. First-Year Eligibility and Retention. First-year eligibility rates in men’s basketball (93.9% among 2005-06 freshmen) are similar to the aggregate for all Division I student-athletes and higher than for football (91.8%). However, retention rates of first-year basketball players have decreased from 85.9% to 80.6% over the past three years. The retention rates overall and within football are currently over 87%.

15. Coaching Changes and APR. Coaching changes in men’s basketball appear to be associated with a 2 to 3 year dip in APR (the last 1 to 2 years under the old staff and the first year with the new staff). In basketball, these APR drops appear to be due primarily to retention issues. The relationship between coaching changes and APR seems to be stronger in basketball than in football. Approximately 18% of Division I men’s basketball programs hired new coaches in each of the last two years vs. 12-14% per year in the previous three years.

16. Trends in “0-for-2s”. In the three years of the APR program, the number of “0-for-2s” (student-athletes who leave an institution while academically ineligible, thus losing both the eligibility and retention point in their last term) has decreased by 12% in football, 21% in baseball, but only 3% in men’s basketball. The total number of 0-for-2s in basketball was 312 in 2005-06, which is 7.4% of all players receiving aid during the academic year (vs. 6.0% in football and 4.5% in baseball).

17. “0-for-2s” among Transfer Students. In men’s basketball, 5.5% of non-transfers leave as 0-for-2s in any given year. This compares to 7.5% of basketball players who enter as transfers from other 4-year schools and 14.7% who enter as 2-year college transfers. Basketball players appear to be most likely to leave as 0-for-2s when their eligibility expires. The likelihood of being a 0-for-2 as a function of year in school for non-transfers is very similar for men’s basketball and football. For two-year transfers, basketball players are more likely at all points in time to leave as 0-for-2s in comparison to football players.

18. Prediction of 0-for-2 Status. Based on the academic and demographic variables available to the NCAA, students who eventually become 0-for-2s were most accurately predicted by prior academic achievement (e.g., high school grades). Having transferred from either a 2-year or 4-year school increased the likelihood of becoming a 0-for-2 even after accounting for academic preparation.

19. Research on the effects of transferring. A long-term study of several thousand 1994 high school graduates who went on to become Division I student-athletes has shown that transferring is associated with a reduced probability of graduation and a longer timeline among those who do graduate. These effects of transferring appear stronger among students experiencing less academic success (e.g., students with a lower GPA).

20. Alternative APR Models that Treat Retention Differently. The Division I Committee on Academic Performance (CAP) has recently reviewed a number of alternative APR metrics that either treat transfers differently than the current metric or that reweight the eligibility and retention components. Models that weight E more than R in the APR calculation or that use eligibility only result in very similar numbers of men’s basketball teams not meeting the 900 and 925 cut-offs as currently seen. A model that forgives the loss of a retention point for any student-athlete who leaves college while academically eligible would result in many fewer teams below the current cut-offs. However, the 900 and 925 benchmarks on this “transfer-adjusted APR” do not correspond to the same projected GSR and federal graduation rates as the current APR. Maintaining those graduation rate standards could necessitate increasing the cut-off scores by 25 or more points over their current level, which would result in similar impacts as the 900 and 925 cut-offs on the current APR. It should be noted that none of the alternative models was as accurate at predicting GSR and the federal graduation rate as the current APR metric.

21. Retention Adjustment for Students Leaving with Strong Academic Records. Based on research results showing that students with good academic records who transfer experience similar academic outcomes as comparable students who do not transfer, CAP has started to study models that excuse retention losses of students who leave with strong academic records (e.g., GPA above 2.8).