Bootleg's 2012 Graduation Rate Analysis

We've never played the academic "game" right. You redshirt a couple guys along the way (giving them an extra year) and find a towel waver or two to ride the pine and get a degree and then you have more than enough cover for the guys who do just enough to stay eligible and go pro. Replace Chad Wise and Darius Smith and Rob Garrison and Ben Eaves with Connecticut guys happy to wave a towel for State U and get a degree and our GSR doubles, since we're talking such a small sample size.

Our top players/recruits have also been consistently good students along the way - Ray, Rip, Khalid, Ricky, Taliek, Emeka, Ben, Rudy, Thabeet, Dyson, Kemba, Oriakhi. None had issues with qualifying or went to dIploma mills or were close to ineligible in college or made you cringe when they spoke publicly. Maybe Caron had issues qualifying, but I'd be surprised if he didn't work hard in the classroom given his background. Also not sure about Blair Academy where Charlie V went, but Luol Deng went there and got into Duke, so it can't be that bad.

I recall five guys with qualifying/Clearinghouse issues - Saunders, Mouring, Souley, Deng and Nate Miles. Two of them graduated (Ed graduated with two degrees, Souley got his fourth year back after he graduated), one graduated from Fairfield, one dropped out after his senior season ended (Albie) and we'll never know about the last.

To the person who asked about AJ, he was only in school six semesters, since he took a medical leave one year and was suspended from school the next. Stanley also was only in school seven semesters (and left one in the middle for a personal leave). Both guys are GSR/APR hits, but without the medical issues, they might have been fine. Rashad also likely fell behind when he was hospitalized for weeks with a staph infection and almost died.

I hope what you're saying here is that it is disgraceful UConn players are not committed to becoming seniors and graduating. You can't possibly be saying that somehow a 25% rate is somehow OK because most players never get to their senior years. Well, there is a reason why they don't get to their senior years. NOT that they are going into the NBA which accounts for a handful of players. But rather, the basketball program has a sh**y culture engendered by our head coach in which academic achievement is laughed at.

Believe it or not guys, in this BIG time basketball program called UConn the players get something called scholarships. Which means they actually go to school, learn something and have the chance to graduate with a degree if their NBA careers don't pan out. Calhoun should be telling them that a degree is that much more important because he knows full well most of his players won't be playing in the NBA. A degree is that much more important.

JC can't go to class for his players but the program can encourage a culture of academic achievement - that it is something AS IMPORTANT AS PLAYING BASKETBALL.

This will prove to be the worst part of Calhoun's legacy as coach, nothing else comes close. And it is all happening at the end of his career and not at the beginning.

Who wants to take bets that the next hoop coach will have academic progress metrics in his contract. Sh**ty academic performance like we are witnessing today will not be tolerated or the coach will be given the door with no exit money. This will be the case if Herbst has the focus and commitment I believe she does.

For one prospective coaching candidate this isn't an issue. Brad Stevens' program at Butler has a PERFECT 1.000 APR. Sounds like the perfect fit for UConn.

Having said that both Bazz and AD loved Calhoun and if Herbst did her job and avoided the post season ban - AD would have been back.[/quote]

Chief the problem was hardly Herbst's fault. She got handed this whole steaming mess coming in the door.

A huge steaming pile of BS in this post.

The real discussion ought to be, IMHO, whether or not the main goal of a university basketball program should be an early exit feeder system to the pros. When Calipari last year said on draft night that it was a great night for the U of Kentucky, I cringed. It was a great night for the kids who went pro. So hooray, this year they won the NC and get to have another minor league franchise next year. It's giving up the ghost entirely from my point of view to say big whoop for schools who don't value winning championships if it means kids stay in school through graduation, as if sports championships is what our university was put on earth for. Don't misunderstand me, because I have a tape of every blessed championship game and semi-final UConn has been in, including the NIT victory.

Even if the graduation stats shown are not realistically what they appear to be put out there to portray, it is not a completely bogus question to ask why UConn has so few kids stick with the school through graduation. Obviously, the one thing this stat does show is that a lot of programs don't have the kind of turnover we do, not even close. If some of the folks here who are primarily focused on winning or, if not that, pointing out the silliness of these stats or even questionable motivation of the enforcing authorities, it seems to me it would be at least worth a dispassionate look at why UConn sticks out like a sore thumb. Maybe every defensive explanation of UConn's men's hoops educational relevance holds water and the picture the bare stats purport to show aren't worth the dried ink on the page. But if all the program is, is an off the book appendage to the university, maybe it isn't worth celebrating and time for the program to head in a different direction.

How many times do I have to point out why this is wrong?

Let me say this again: if you have 13 scholarship kids, and only 1 of them graduates, your score can still be 100%. The stat doesn't count transfers or kids leaving for pro contracts. You can go 1 for 1 = 100%

If you have 13 scholarship kids, and only 1 graduates, you can score a 25%, if you only had 9 transfers and pro contract departures. You went 1 for 4 = 25%.

Given the ridiculous nature of this statistic, you're asking why one school sticks out?

If you look at the FSR rates (federal rates) all these schools are in the 25-35% range, and none of them stick out. You say schools don't have much turnover as UConn, and yet the national average for transfers is 45% (which includes all 400 D1 schools, even Davidson!).

OK, so why do schools score 100% and UConn doesn't? If you've been reading Jay Bilas and even take half a blind look at the story on UNC athletics-academics, you know why this happens.

To say I'm putting athletics ahead of academics in making this argument is to miss the entire point of what I've been saying.

I don't care how you manipulate the numbers, our graduation rate sucks and has for some time. Uconn took too long to make changes in the system and recruiting.
Retroactive punishment isn't fair but nobody can deny that our record was horrible.

I know what you are saying and you are missing what am saying. You aren't the poster who commented that we are about winning championships as if that is a good reason for excusing academic issues or to put down other programs because they can't get the early NBA exiters. For reasons not controlled by the universities, basketball players who are pro ready are pretty much forced into college for at least a year. However, it is also undeniably true that universities take in kids who do not meet the usual standards for admission if they can windmill dunk from a standing start at 40 feet from a hoop. Obviously, UConn is far from alone on that score. The going pro early business is a whole separate topic, or should be.

I am not defending the value of this report. If one is going to measure graduation rate by who actually gets a degree at the end of a 4-5 year stay,I believe the way to look at a school is to see if there is any real difference between the rate for athletes and the rate for the school as a whole. In the case of men's hoops, and to the extent relevant, football, I would not count kids who depart early for the pros. I'm not sure what happens to UConn's rate if those kids are eliminated. A program with 100% rate, if that is way out of whack for the norm for a school, raises questions every bit as much as does a low rate. How kids are kept in good standing for the years needed to get a degree is what is really worthy of review if the powers that be want to stop dicking around the issue. The phoniness of all of this is that schools with great academic stats for athletes are not necessarily doing a great job of providing a college education compared to schools with worse stats. I don't want UConn to have "special" majors for athletes but totally think that special support is appropriate given the time demanded of these kids,often for most of the academic year. They owe something back as well in exchange for a free education. However, regardless of the national issues on this point, UConn is the school I'm interested in. It's hard to say that UConn has been a shining example of the right way to do things even if this sort of report presents misleading stats (and even if the APR system is poorly conceived). Something got out of whack at UConn , and is apparently being addressed now. I hope in a way that reflects real academics and not just a way to make sure kids are just being floated through.

What changes in the system do you want? Should we adopt UNC's changes? Or Kentucky's? That would satisfy you?

Did you read Herbst's application for the waiver to the NCAA? She lists the measures UConn is taking. Let's just say that UConn will very likely not be in trouble with the APR ever again. And that would be a huge concern for me. The near impossibility of failure should be a huge concern.

How the hell do you know that he isn't telling the guys to get a degree? Also, Calhoun does have academic progress metrics in his contract. He was docked 100 grand last year because the APR fell short of the number set out in his contract.

Again, Jeff Adrien and Gavin Edwards are grown men and they were grown men in '09 and '10 respectively. As much as the staff and Calhoun wants to, they can't force those guys to stay and graduate, it's their decision. Just like it was Paul Harris' decision when he decided not to stick it out and graduate from Syracuse.

As recently as the summer of '09 UConn was still not requiring kids to stay and take classes over the summer, even though every other school in the country was. A lot of that falls on Hathaway to not make that mandated.

UConn knows how to play the game now, and they will play it very well in the future.

The right response is to makes sure kids take real college classes and do their best to keep their grades up, which I think you do agree with. The right response includes not going too far out on a limb with who you are willing to take into the program. There actually is no shame in never being a national champion. As great a coach as JC is, I think he's been too willing to go after kids he can "save". It almost never has worked out on the court or in the classroom. And it has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with academic interest and motivation. Of course, some of UConn's academic issues have come from kids who didn't fall into the "saving" category.

My issue with the NCAA isn't that it tries to take sometimes strange steps to assure that the "student" part of student-athlete means something, even if it is face saving. They ought to be in that business, but need to fish or cut bait on the real problem and then get out of the way. High school transcripts get scrutinized with a microscope and if the kids had the curriculum in hs that some of the kids get to take as college students, they wouldn't get anywhere near a college campus. I think that if a university can demonstrate that its athletes have a a real college curriculum, at least one that non-athletes are allowed to take, and that they are requiring class attendance and that they are taking reasonable steps such as tutoring to help kids having problems, then they are acting correctly. If a kid can't cut it at that point, the school should not be penalized, assuming at that point that it doesn't do funny stuff to keep the player eligible.

None of that has anything to do with UConn's particular problem with the post season ban based on a new penalty after the fact. The NCAA is dead wrong on that one.

My only problem from the start is that the NCAA is creating incentives to make academics LESS important than athletics.

OK....Just for the sake of argument (literally)....

If kids in our computer sciences department, or kids in our chemistry department, were being poached by the computer industry, and by the pharmaceutical companies (respectively).... as freshmen and sophomores....and being money whipped pretty good with large 6 figure employment contracts.....

Would we consider the low graduation rates in those departments as indictments of the poor quality and overall diminished value of what UConn provides in those departments?

Talk among yourselves....

You make a good point...

Here's a really long article that answers your question: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/30/120430fa_fact_auletta

The debate is not without some controversy, but in general, no, the school would not be too upset. Of course, what works at Stanford may not work at many other schools so you wouldn't want to copy this program. Stanford in this sense sees itself as a minor league franchise for the Silicon Valley big leagues, only some of the minor teams can move up a division.

One anecdote: Steve Jobs got a lot out of his dropout experience while Bill Gates says he got almost nothing. So, you can be someone who doesn't graduate but actually was edified by his experience and learned a lot, while another with a diploma learned next to nothing.

You know what moron, maybe you need to do a little homework on our 2012 recruiting class before you run your mouth. It includes Derrick Gordon a 4* guard transfer from WKU and a 3* 7'1" center, Isaac Freeman. Adding the fact that we only lose 1 player, it could make for an interesting season. I congratulate you for your 3 NCs and 29 wins over Umess (I know you like that almost as much as the squid) but you need to stop living in the past. I fully expect this moron to be in his nursing home in his golden years still barking about the 3 NCs and the 29 wins with a poster of John Calipari on the wall and a jar of lube on the night stand. All this while soiling his Depends!

Living in the past? UMass has been better than UConn for one season out of the last 35, and that's even arguable that UMass was better in 96.

UConn will be better than UMass next year as well. Just accept it.

Look, you and your resident Calipari obsessed moron and more nervous about the future of Uconn basketball than your willing to admit. And you certainly wouldn't admit it to me. Hey I was worried too back in the spring of '96.

No, I'm not worried. And I'm especially not worried about UMass of all teams. What exactly has UMass done to make UConn fans fear them? By 96 UConn had already won multiple Big East championships, been a number 1 seed, and pummeled UMass multiple times. When is the last time UMass even won an A-10 title, be it a regular season or tournament one?

Your current team barely got into the NIT with their best season in years. Meanwhile UConn had one of their worst seasons in years and they still made the tournament.

Exactly where did I say you were worried about Umass? I beleive I said "worried about the future of Uconn basketball" And how is a 4 seed barely making the NIT? Don't get confused knucklehead. The only comparison was a response to the moron claim that you still out recruit us. Class of 2012, we both got a 4* guard and a 3* big man. So I'll ask Huskymornic, how did you out recruit us?

You're twisting a conversation about the future of 2 programs and reverting back to the past, our series, your championships. Living in the past!