Editorial today

[UConn Hoops1]

You must be an attorney. I fully understand that lawsuits can be a bottomless pit with no guaranteed outcome. You should realize that my comments were born of frustration with the official response to this mess combined with the apparent "untouchability" of the NCAA. It is a tragic combination that I guess we are going to have to live with for now. But it's not going to stop me from complaining about it.

GO HUSKIES!!!

 

[willie99]

The new system for APR compliance at UConn, and every other school, is that athletes will be issued passing grades for every class they take.

actually, that's probably the existing policy at many, if not most, schools

the reason why UConn is in trouble is not because they cheated, but because they didn't cheat

as usual, the media sells the story backwards

 

[wpq4elamin]

actually, that's probably the existing policy at many, if not most, schools

the reason why UConn is in trouble is not because they cheated, but because they didn't cheat

as usual, the media sells the story backwards

this is an excellent point and one that is not made enough... it's fairly obvious that Uconn can't be cheating (that much, at least) in terms of grades or ridiculously easy classes that students are taking, because then we wouldn't be in this APR mess and everyone would have had A's in Basketweaving 101 and Philosophy of Sport 212... funny how the media works, isn't it?

 

[upstater]

this is an excellent point and one that is not made enough... it's fairly obvious that Uconn can't be cheating (that much, at least) in terms of grades or ridiculously easy classes that students are taking, because then we wouldn't be in this APR mess and everyone would have had A's in Basketweaving 101 and Philosophy of Sport 212... funny how the media works, isn't it?

But, but, but, I have been saying this over and over, it's not about grades. It's not about cheating in classes. Grades are not the reason for messing up the APR. It's about not completing credits. So, you can say that it's about grades in the sense that students are asked to complete easy courses, but I think talking about grades at all is distracting because ultimately, grades are the student's responsibility. Yet here we have entire systems set-up so that players achieve their credits, by and large, before the spring basketball season. The focus should be on these systems rather than on professors giving easy grades in certain classes.

 

[cohenzone]

I'd be the last to defend the NCAA's imposition of new sanctions for old violations. And the APR may be a totally stupid criteria. But, it is the system. It seems to me that if there is something called an APR, and if UConn is an institution that doesn't have special majors for athletes or does not overly protect them from stern profs. then UConn sports had to operate under both circumstances. Which brings us to how UConn coaches and JC in particular prioritized the academics. I'm not saying ignored, I'm saying prioritized it so that the athletes wouldn't dare fail to make a good faith effort to do their part. I'm generally not high on anecdotal evidence so you can take this for what it's worth. I know from someone with decent inside knowledge that on at least one known occasion when the last academic adviser was in place, several players ignored him when he told them that they had to do their study period. Maybe it was an exception, I really don't know,but my source suggests that the academic adviser was not just frustrated with the kids.

I remember going to Storrs to a game maybe 5-6 years ago. We were early and for reasons I don;t recall, we went into the library. It was about 3 weeks after the end of the football season. If the whole football team wasn't in there, there weren't many missing. If I was never totally an Edsall fan, that night at least impressed me about the message he must have been giving the team. Obviously, also anecdotal, so I don't know the day to day picture.

Anyway, crappy situation.

 

[upstater]

I'd be the last to defend the NCAA's imposition of new sanctions for old violations. And the APR may be a totally stupid criteria. But, it is the system. It seems to me that if there is something called an APR, and if UConn is an institution that doesn't have special majors for athletes or does not overly protect them from stern profs. then UConn sports had to operate under both circumstances. Which brings us to how UConn coaches and JC in particular prioritized the academics. I'm not saying ignored, I'm saying prioritized it so that the athletes wouldn't dare fail to make a good faith effort to do their part. I'm generally not high on anecdotal evidence so you can take this for what it's worth. I know from someone with decent inside knowledge that on at least one known occasion when the last academic adviser was in place, several players ignored him when he told them that they had to do their study period. Maybe it was an exception, I really don't know,but my source suggests that the academic adviser was not just frustrated with the kids.

I remember going to Storrs to a game maybe 5-6 years ago. We were early and for reasons I don;t recall, we went into the library. It was about 3 weeks after the end of the football season. If the whole football team wasn't in there, there weren't many missing. If I was never totally an Edsall fan, that night at least impressed me about the message he must have been giving the team. Obviously, also anecdotal, so I don't know the day to day picture.

Anyway, crappy situation.

But again, this isn't a question of bad grades in classes.

 

[cohenzone]

But again, this isn't a question of bad grades in classes.

But it is a matter of attitude and emphasis. These things are not all that disconnected.

 

[upstater]

But it is a matter of attitude and emphasis. These things are not all that disconnected.

I don't agree. If someone wants to leave early, then let them. They could be stellar students, A students, and they would impact the APR. As we've been discussing, if the attitude and emphasis changes to clustering students and putting them in bogus courses, which seems to be happening, then how would you characterize it? I would call it, anti-academic. And that's what the APR is.

 

[cohenzone]

I don't agree. If someone wants to leave early, then let them. They could be stellar students, A students, and they would impact the APR. As we've been discussing, if the attitude and emphasis changes to clustering students and putting them in bogus courses, which seems to be happening, then how would you characterize it? I would call it, anti-academic. And that's what the APR is.

Frankly, while the system might be disconnected to actual academic pursuit, I simply don't believe that of all the D1 schools, UConn is the only one that doesn't have phoney programs, has kids leave early and/or are not otherwise in good standing, or whatever it is that caused this situation. Somebody dropped the ball at UConn. The APR rule applied to everyone, not just UConn. It would very interesting to know just how many schools are doing the clustering and bogus course in response to the APR requirement as opposed to schools that already were doing that sort of thing. It was clearly always possible for schools to comply with this requirement without being phoney.

 

[upstater]

Frankly, while the system might be disconnected to actual academic pursuit, I simply don't believe that of all the D1 schools, UConn is the only one that doesn't have phoney programs, has kids leave early and/or are not otherwise in good standing, or whatever it is that caused this situation. Somebody dropped the ball at UConn. The APR rule applied to everyone, not just UConn. It would very interesting to know just how many schools are doing the clustering and bogus course in response to the APR requirement as opposed to schools that already were doing that sort of thing. It was clearly always possible for schools to comply with this requirement without being phoney.

13 schools out of 64 in the NCAA tourney fell afoul of the APR this year, including schools like Syracuse and Florida St.

And, now, UConn is doing the clustering. It was in UConn's own appeal that they will be requiring all basketball players to take three August courses, as well as intersession courses between the Fall and Spring. UConn players took a one week course around December when they were visiting art galleries in NYC.

Since the requirement puts emphasis on eligibility and off of graduation and proceeding toward a degree, schools are now doing what they can to pump up credits.You are 10x better off with one-and-done kids who don't care about academics than you are with kids who will either stay on and proceed toward a degree (i.e. take tougher courses) or with transfers (who are required to maintain their GPA). It is simply inexplicable that one and done kids do not have to maintain a decent GPA while transfers and others do. I'd really like to hear an explanation for that.

Excuse me while I roll my eyes every time I read the words "dropped the ball." Dropped the ball in adhering to bogus criteria. Odd usage.

 

[UConn Hoops1]

"13 schools out of 64 in the NCAA tourney fell afoul of the APR this year, including schools like Syracuse and Florida St."

Let me ask,perhaps, a stupid question. Obviously the focus here has been almost totally on UConn. This is the first time I'm hearing about other schools(I did know about Syracuse and Toledo). Have they been run over by a truck(NCAA) in the same manner that UConn has. I had been under the impression that we were the "let's make an example of an elite program" case. Apparently that is not true. Were the other schools prohibited from NCAA participation? Did their respective conferences also take action?

GO HUSKIES!!!

 

[upstater]

"13 schools out of 64 in the NCAA tourney fell afoul of the APR this year, including schools like Syracuse and Florida St."

Let me ask,perhaps, a stupid question. Obviously the focus here has been almost totally on UConn. This is the first time I'm hearing about other schools(I did know about Syracuse and Toledo). Have they been run over by a truck(NCAA) in the same manner that UConn has. I had been under the impression that we were the "let's make an example of an elite program" case. Apparently that is not true. Were the other schools prohibited from NCAA participation? Did their respective conferences also take action?

GO HUSKIES!!!

No, the NCAA chose not to apply the rule this year when those 13 tourney schools fell afoul (I'm assuming a lot more did as well, besides the tourney schools).

They chose to apply the rule for the coming year when only Toledo, UL-Lafayette and UConn have fallen afoul, as well as a few traditionally black schools.