The reality is that some schools have a higher set of standards for their school athletes than others. Sadly more and more schools are caving in to the pressures to lower their standards for student athletes in order to be competitive.
No amount of oversight will reverse this trend imo. It has to start with a significant majority of people with invested interests in sports to insist on a change. It won't come from networks. They make too much money to care. And now the colleges have been corrupted by the money. So it has to come from the fans. I don't see that happening anytime soon.
FWIW:
freescooter's agenda is very clear. He wants UConn to be considered a football school because he loves football and is, at best, a disinterested basketball fan. So he comes to these forums with the agenda of polluting peoples opinions about the basketball program with the hope of convincing bb fans that the program wasn't as good as we believe it is. When he discusses standards during JC's tenure he really wants to corrupt the legacy. Many of us see through this. But there are those who are more susceptible to this type of mindbending. Whatever logical discussions you are having with him are wasted because he isn't interested in learning the truth.
Can't speak for the others, but you got me partly right. I am more of a football fan than basketball, though I'd hardly classify myself as disinterested. I give Jim Calhoun no end of credit for the program he built. And I'm the one who argues UConn is at a level where it could have attracted any number of high profile coaches rather than give the job to a complete unknown...I see most of the posters here acting as if we'd be lucky to land the Hartford High coach...they are the ones who don't understand what Calhoun has built, I think.
I have been troubled by what has been happening with the program over the later years of Calhoun's tenure, though. that is absolutely accurate. To me there is no question that the standards have in fact declined, beginning I would say after the 2004 title. I am absolutely convinced that after that win, Calhoun wanted a 3rd title so badly that he "lost his way" to a degree in terms of the players he was willing to take. Players he wouldn't have taken, and players he would have tossed off the team in 2002 where suddenly showing up all over the place and on top of that he would go to extreme lengths to land them. beginning with the 2006 George mason debacle where for the first time in the Calhoun era we had a team that didn't much care, thorugh laptopgate this all culminated in the Nate Miles fiasco,NCAA violations and ultimately the APR fiasco. Upstater is right that APR is a foolish system, though he is being misleading with the Cal Tech stuff since APR simply doesn't apply in D3. But the reason UConn flunked the APR had nothing to do with their higher academic standards. Zero, Nada, Ziltch, Squato....it happened because Calhoun didn't give a crap. Made no effort to see that his players went to class, completed assignments and so forth. From what I've heard, that wasn't the case in 1995. it was by 2005. The funny thing was that the team that really wasn't supposed to be that good, and was made up of more likeable guys for that matter, no problem children, was the one that actually got Calhoun his 3rd title. UConn which in 2004 was both respected and popular nationally, led by a player of the year who also was a high achieving student who graduated in 3 years...has managed to become the poster child for all that is wrong with college basketball, from recruiting violations, to academic failures to rent a players...and now we have offered the coaching job to a guy whose sole qualification is that he is Calhoun's buddy...I thas little to do with hoping UConn becomes a football school, though I hope the program ultimately does reach significant heights. It is much more about seeing a program and a university that prided itself on winning the right way become one that is willingto win at any cost.
My intent in bringing the three guys to the picture was to point out to people that there are two things to consider when having a discussion. The first is the topic that is being discussed. The second, and far more important consideration, is to know who the person is that you are having a discussion with. And in this latter category, know that there are different hot buttons for people. When a person's hot button is pushed the situation becomes emotional and sometimes irrational for that person. Any attempt to be logical and havd a reasonable discussion are unlikely.