NCAA Grad Rate Report Updated For Sweet 16

ORLANDO, FL -Aa new study on the Graduation Success Rates and Academic Progress Rates of the teams in the men’s and women’s Sweet 16, has just been released by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida. It is a follow-up to its annual study, “Keeping Score When It Counts: Graduation Success and Academic Progress Rates for the 2011 NCAA Division I Women’s and Men’s Basketball Tournament Teams,” which compared Graduation Success and Academic Progress Rates for Division I teams that had been selected for the men’s and women’s brackets of the 2011 NCAA Basketball Tournaments. The author of the study is Dr. Richard Lapchick, who is director of The Institute and chair of the DeVos Sport Business Management Graduate Program at UCF. The study was co-authored this year by Kara Adams, Simone Jackson, Michael Kuhn and Elizabeth Schulz.

If the Sweet 16 for men’s/women’s basketball teams were seeded based on Graduation Success Rates, then the complete seeding would be (team’s overall GSR is in parentheses after the school’s name):

Men’s Women’s

#1. BYU (100%) #1. (tie) Duke (100%)

#2. Marquette (91%) #1. (tie) North Carolina (100%)

#3. North Carolina (88%) #1. (tie) Notre Dame (100%)

#4. (tie) Butler (83%) #1. (tie) Ohio State (100%)

#4. (tie) Richmond (83%) #1. (tie) Stanford (100%)

#4. (tie) Duke (83%) #1. (tie)Tennessee (100%)

#7. Kansas (80%) #7. Gonzaga (94%)

#8. Florida State (73%) #8. Louisville (93%)

#9. Wisconsin (70%) #9. (tie)Connecticut (92%)

#10. Ohio State (64%) #9.(tie)DePaul (92%)

#11. San Diego State (58%) #9 (tie). Green Bay (92%)

#12. VCU (56%) #9. (tie) Oklahoma (92%)

#13. (tie) Kentucky (44%) #13 Georgetown (91%)

#13. (tie) Florida (44%) #14 Baylor (88%)

#15. UConn (31%) #15 Georgia (77%)

#16. Arizona (20%) #16 Texas A&M (65%)

In addition, based on Academic Progress Rates, the Sweet 16 seeding for men’s/women’s basketball would be the following (team’s APR is in parentheses after the school’s name):

Men’s Women’s

#1. (tie) Butler (1000) #1. Georgia (1000)

#1. (tie) Kansas (1000) #2. DePaul (996)

#3. (tie) BYU (995) #3. Oklahoma (995)

#3. (tie) North Carolina (995) #4. Ohio State (993)

#5. Duke (980) #5. Green Bay (991)

#6. (tie) Marquette (975) #6. (tie)Connecticut (990)

#6. (tie) VCU (975) #6. (tie) Duke (990)

#8. Richmond (967) #8. Notre Dame (989)

#9. Wisconsin (966) #9. Stanford (985)

#10. Florida (956) #10. Georgetown (982)

#11. Kentucky (954) #11. Gonzaga (981)

#12. (tie)Arizona (944) #12.North Carolina (979)

#12. (tie)Florida State (944) #13. Tennessee (973)

#14. UConn (930) #14. Baylor (957)

#15. Ohio State (929) #15. (tie) Louisville (954)

#16. San Diego State (921) #15. (tie) Texas A&M (954)

Lapchick noted “Six of the Sweet 16 women’s teams and one men’s team had 100 percent graduation success rates. Thirteen women’s and two men’s teams had a GSR above 90 percent.

“In addition, 100 percent of the women’s teams graduated at least 60 percent of their basketball student-athletes compared to 10 men’s teams (63 percent). Whether it is all the tournament teams or the Sweet 16 teams, the women do better than the men academically.

“There was good news for many of the Sweet 16 men’s and women’s teams with their APR rates. There were 11 men’s teams (69 percent) and all 16 women’s teams (100 percent) with an APR of 950 or ab! ove, nine men’s teams (56 percent) and 13 women’s teams (81 percent) with an APR of 960 or above and seven men’s teams (44 percent) and 13 women’s teams (81 percent) with an APR of 970 or above.”

In this year’s Sweet 16, there is only one team - San Diego State - to have an APR score below 925. However, it will not be subject to contemporaneous penalties by the NCAA. All the women’s teams were above the 925 score.

In addition:

16 women’s teams (100 percent) compared to ten of the men’s teams (63 percent) graduated at least 60 percent of their overall basketball student-athletes.
15 women’s teams (94 percent) compared to nine of the men’s (56 percent) teams graduated at least 70 percent.
No women’s team graduated less than 40 percent while two of the men’s teams (13 percent) were below that mark.

Lapchick emphasized, “Race remains an ongoing academic issue because of the continued gap between graduation rates for white and African-American student-athletes including a significant disparity between white and African-American basketball student-athletes. The good news is that the GSR rates for both whites and African-Americans are going up. The bad news is that the gap has increased significantly for men and slightly for women.

“That disparity is troublesome. Among the Sweet 16, white male basketball student-athletes graduate at 97 percent versus only 57 percent of African-American male basketball student-athletes. White female basketball student-athletes graduate at 97 percent, while 90 percent of African-American female basketball student-athletes graduate. The men’s 40 percentage point disparity among the men is 13 percentage points greater than last year. The women’s seven percentage point disparity is two percentage points higher than last year.

Among the notable results on the topic of race and academics for the Sweet 16 teams’ GSR data are:

Two of the women’s Sweet 16 teams (13 percent) and nine of the men’s Sweet 16 teams (60 percent) have graduation rates for African-American basketball student-athletes that were at least 30 percent lower than their rates for white basketball student-athletes.
Three women’s teams (19 percent) and 12 men’s teams (80 percent) have graduation rates for African-American basketball student-athletes that were at least 20 percent lower than their rates for white basketball student-athletes.

Lapchick concluded that “No matter how many teams we examine, overall women basketball student-athletes succeed academically better than their male counterparts. And no matter whether we look at women’s or men’s college basketball, there is a gap between the graduation rates of white and African-American basketball student-athletes. However, at a seven percentage point gap, these Sweet 16 women’s teams are far closer than among the men’s startling 40 percentage point gap. The latter is far too big and must be narrowed. I believe that the late former NCAA President Myles Brand’s reform package has led us in the right way but the job is not done.”

NCAA statistics were used in the study. The Institute reviewed the six-year graduation rates of each school’s freshman class that enrolled in 2003-04, and it then calculated a four-class average (freshmen classes of 2000-01, 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04). The APR data in this study does not include data from the 2009-10 academic performances of the teams, but instead uses the four-year data from the 2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08, and 2008-09 academic years.

Note: The men’s and women’s percentages were calculated as follows:

All men’s graduation rates were based on 16 teams.
The disparity figures for men’s teams are based on 15 teams. Virginia Commonwealth had no white basketball studentÃ¢â‚¬Âathletes in the graduating class in the period under review.
The disparity figures for women’s teams are based on all 16 teams.