New APR Standards Would Have Kept Syracuse Out Of 2011 NCAA Tournament

They show no foresight at all and create policies based solely on knee-jerk reactions. I remember reading that Voterprime article awhile back and it came to mind when I started seeing news of them raising the APR line to 930. I’m all for demanding that student-athletes be students first. But, obviously, the NCAA system can’t remain as hard-lined as it is now. Unfortunately, the NCAA won’t realize this until teams like Syracuse, Kentucky, Kansas, UConn, Texas, etc. start missing NCAA tourneys.

They each stopped going to class after the season was over. How can a coach make a player go to class if that player has decided he wants to be a professional player and not a student-athlete anymore?

Or are we to be penalized for having really talented players who don’t need to stay here for four years?

I think this might actually be part of the point. I think this is a way some of these presidents want to fight the one-and-done type of players. I don’t know that it will work because the players will do what they do, but maybe the hope is that coaches will shy away from players that might have that mentality? Maybe I’m wrong and they will work in some waivers/loopholes to deal with talented players leaving early, but I kind of suspect these presidents don’t like seeing kids breeze through campus for a year or two while barely attending class (even if they bring national attention and money). So this is their misguided way of trying to slow that kind of thing down.

I may be way off-base, but I’m wondering if the presidents are trying to take some kind of principled stand.

…the NCAA is really concerned with kids leaving early. If they cared that much, they’d institute rules like they have for baseball, where a kid can get drafted but still play college ball. I’ve never understood why it ISN’T this way for basketball. I understand that, in baseball, 200 kids get drafted a year and 180 of them won’t sniff the majors for at least 5 years anyway. So baseball clubs would almost rather have a kid develop in college and not have to pay them. But the NBA is heading in that direction too. They don’t have the extensive minor league system of MLB, but it’s pretty common practice to draft a young foreign player and let some other club pay his salary while he develops.

I think the NCAA’s main concern in this issue is maintaining the illusion that their mission is to keep students-athletes as students, not un(der)paid professionals when their true mission is like that of any corporate body…to make money.

But I disagree with the assertion that the coach does not have any control over whether players go to class. If you recruit players who have a mindset that education is a 10th priority in life, then that is inevitable. After the last whistle, the books get sold back for spending money.

However, if you can recruit players who at least give SOME crap about their education, it is less inevitable. And, once you get them on campus, you can instill in them the concept that the education is something that they need to pursue vigorously for their own personal development AND provide them the follow-up to make sure that the value is being perceived… it is also less inevitable. I am sure JB has hundreds of stories of guys who were ill prepared even for the NBA because of a lack of education. What’s the point of living large for a few years and then going bankrupt? So what if you get money but do not have the good sense to invest it properly? School can be tedious and seem disjointed with “the real life,” but it is up to the guy in the suit and tie to reach these kids. He had 2-3 years for Flynn, Devo, and Harris. i find it hard to believe that this came out of nowhere.

If all schools are playing by the same rules, this means that all schools will have to figure out a way to respond too. It might mean the end of Kentucky as we know it. Or… we may just see Kentucky spearheading the changes to the APR system that prevent this problem.

I hope. I REALLY hope.