Published: March 23, 2010
The California Golden Bears started their game against the Louisville Cardinals, March 19, on a 12-0 run and never looked back, defeating Louisville 77-62 and eliminating them from the NCAA Tournament.
If it was up to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, both teams would have been eliminated before they even got a chance to lace up their Nikes.
Duncan is suggesting that teams that do not graduate at least 40 percent of their players be banned from postseason play.
This year, that would have kept 12 of the 65 teams in the tournament from participating, including one-seeded Kentucky. Maryland had the lowest rate of any tournament team, posting only an eight percent graduation rate. Baylor, Tennessee, Washington, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Clemson, Georgia Tech, New Mexico State and Missouri also failed to graduate 40 percent of their players.
Those numbers are astonishingly low, considering that the vast majority of college basketball players will never play a game in the NBA.
The NCAA uses a different formula to calculate graduation rates, excluding players who leave early to turn professional, drop out or transfer. However, using this formula produces only slightly better results.
Rather than the 43 percent average calculated using Duncan’s formula, the average graduation rate for last year’s tournament teams was 59 percent. That still leaves two out of five players failing academically