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.
