Blog Archives: June 2009

[Ashlen]

This is an archive of blog entries I published to the old Other Side Sports blog during June 2009.

[Ashlen]

Performance Bonuses for Coaches
06/01/2009

This month’s edition of Athletic Business includes an article by Paul Steinbach discussing the role performance bonuses have on coaching compensation.  At many colleges, coaches receive a significant portion of their compensation through bonuses rather than through a set base salary.  As the article points out, however,  some of the bonuses are so easily obtainable that they might as well be part of the base salary:

"When a school fills out the form for The Chronicle of Higher Education — 'Who's the highest-paid person at your school?' — the football coach doesn't necessarily show up as number one, because his contract is incentive-laden," says Andy Fellingham, executive director of InterCollegiate Athletics Consulting. "But some of the incentives are so attainable, they're almost like guarantees. If the guy can walk and chew gum, and he's still at the school, he'll double his salary."

Steinbach also points out that performance bonuses are heavily skewed towards athletic achievements rather than academic achievements:

Finally, the writer questioned UW's lack of coaches' incentives related to student-athlete academic achievement. On that front, Wisconsin has plenty of company, too. A recent Bloomberg News examination of 81 college coaching contracts found that 29 offered no academic bonuses. Of those that did, classroom performance incentives averaged no more than 6 percent of the coaches' total compensation. By comparison, on-field performance incentives constituted 35 percent. In citing the study, a January 2008 Higher Ed Watch blog used the contract signed three years ago by Arizona State football coach Dennis Erickson to highlight such disparity. In that deal, Erickson's $625,000 base salary could potentially be augmented by a maximum $1.105 million in on-field performance incentives, compared to $45,000 maximum in academic bonuses.

Although the article does not point it out, some of the academic bonuses are hardly very academic.  For example, one of Mack Brown’s contracts at Texas included a $20,000 bonus for achieving a 50% graduation rate.  A 50% graduation rate is still well below the graduation rate for the student body at Texas. 

Nevertheless, one can understand why a lesser-known coach might be given a performance laden contract as compared to a proven coach.  Also, it is understandable why a coach may want performance bonuses at a lower status school where success is unexpected.  That said, it is important to understand how each coach is compensated when making comparisons between schools.  As Fellingham pointed out in the earlier quote, bonuses can hide, or at least make it more difficult to calculate, what coaches really receive.  A cynical person may claim that these easily obtainable bonuses may act to hide actual compensation.  That certainly may be a factor in the way contracts are drawn up.

[Ashlen]

Jenkins on Freshman Eligibility
06/02/2009

Sally Jenkins, sportswriter for The Washington Post, published her thoughts on freshman eligibility in NCAA sports.  In summary, Jenkins finds that freshman eligibility is an educationally destructive idea that colleges use in order to maximize the investment they make to keep players by getting as much playing time from them as possible.  According to Jenkins, freshman ineligibility would help push players who do not want to go  to college find another route to the big leagues while more academically oriented athletes would have the ability to become academically integrated.  Athletes with questionable academic profiles would have the ability to prove themselves in the classroom before they have to suit up.  To put it lightly, Jenkins makes it clear that she is not a big fan of the way the NCAA and colleges handle intercollegiate athletics based on the tone of this article!

[Ashlen]

Simon Fraser Applies for Division II Membership
06/02/2009

In an expected move, British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University applied for NCAA Division II membership.  If membership is granted to them, SFU will be the first Canadian university to be an NCAA member.  SFU and local rival University of British Columbia have tried to gain NCAA membership in the past, but were rejected.  However, last year Division II changed their rules and allowed membership to be given to non-United States based schools.  UBC did not apply for Division II this year.

That said, SFU, UBC, and others have competed in the NAIA.  The primary reason given for Canadian schools wanting to join the NCAA Division I or II is so they can give school paid athletic scholarships.  Canadian Interuniversity Sport, the traditional university sport governing body in Canada, does not allow school paid athletic scholarships.  The concern is that aspiring Canadian athletes are eschewing Canadian universities and taking scholarship offers in the United States. 

I’m not so sure what impact this will have.  Canadian athletes that are offered American Division I scholarships still may go to the United States to attend school.  This could be a risky move given that scholarships are not guaranteed and the price to attend school in the U.S. could be a lot higher.  On the other hand, there are certainly some athletes that would stay in Canada if offered a scholarship.  Perhaps some American athletes, perhaps those considering other Division II or Division III schools, would be tempted to go to SFU.  Does anyone have any thoughts on how Division II membership will impact Simon Fraser?   

[Ashlen]

What are secondary violations?
06/04/2009

It seems like athletic departments are reporting a lot of secondary violations recently.  Tennessee’s new football coach, Lane Kiffin, seems to produce a new secondary violation every week.  One of his secondary violations involved a Twitter post discussing a recruit.  Other coaches have reported secondary violations regarding Twitter.  Secondary violations are not isolated to Twitter incidents though.  It is natural to wonder what a secondary violation is and why a team with a rash of secondary violations gets no penalties for them.  Ray Melick of the Birmingham News asked the same question.  Ultimately, he came to this conclusion:

The NCAA defines a secondary violation as one that "is isolated or inadvertent in nature, provides or is in­tended to provide only a min­imal recruiting, competitive or other advantage, and does not include any significant re­cruiting inducement or extra benefit."

Who determines the differ­ence between "minimal" and "maximum" advantage? Again: When does a secondary violation matter?

I asked the SEC office. And the NCAA office. And I couldn't get a clear answer.

When it comes to recruiting questions and you can't get a clear answer, guess on which side coaches are more likely to err.

Hint: it isn't on the side of caution.

Are secondary violations just a way to make it look like programs are policing themselves?  As Melick points out, it does appear that coaches are knowingly committing and reporting secondary violations because they know they can gain an edge without suffering from equal consequences. 

[Ashlen]

More on Memphis and One and Done Basketball Players
06/05/2009

The allegations against former Memphis basketball player Derrick Rose that he had a stand-in take his SAT exams has lead to a firestorm of criticism for the NBA’s age restriction that seemingly forces many would-be high school draftees to attend at least one year of college. Today, allegations surfaced that another Memphis player, Robert Dozier, has SAT irregularities.Dozier’s SAT score of 1,260 (out of 1,600) was questioned by ETS.Dozier scored a 720 during a retake.The University of Georgia apparently was alarmed by these potential fraudulent scores and rejected Dozier. However, John Calipari’s Memphis team did land Dozier.  Surprisingly, I must give UGA some credit for assessing Dozier's credentials with some level of standards. 

Unlike Rose, however, Dozier is not a one and done athlete. Dozier actually graduated from Memphis with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies this past May. If these allegations are true, it shows that not all the wrongdoing and illegal test taking happens with one and done players. It happened for years before the NBA adopted the policy and there is no doubt that it is happening now. The one and done policy does not help academics and is probably a bad policy from the college academic perspective as colleges admit students that they know don’t plan on graduating or even plan on staying for their second year, but there are bigger problems in the broader realm of things.

The way potential one and done players are advised is also interesting. There is a lot of potential for a one and done heavy program to suffer from poor APR scores. Marlen Garcia, of USA Today, had an interesting piece today on how Ohio State deals with the issue:

Matta has had five players enter the NBA draft as freshmen since 2006. All were first-round picks. In 2007, Oden, a 7-0 center, was taken No. 1 overall by the Portland Trail Blazers. He was joined as a first-round pick by fellow freshmen Mike Conley Jr. and Daequan Cook, all of who helped Ohio State reach the NCAA title game.

All were in good academic standing, Ohio State faculty athletics representative John Bruno says, but Oden faltered by failing to complete the school's third-quarter term. After then-freshman Koufos declared for the NBA draft last spring, he made the same mistake, Bruno confirmed.

Consequently, the team's Academic Progress Rate (APR), which is tracked by the NCAA, slipped, and the team must forfeit two scholarships.

Bruno, a professor of psychology and neuroscience, found himself torn a few months ago as he counseled freshman B.J. Mullens to refrain from enrolling in the third quarter once Mullens decided to enter the draft. Bruno didn't want the school to take another APR hit. "The academic in me feels very conflicted," Bruno says. But the advice, he adds, "is totally defensible and sensible."

It seems that Ohio State’s strategy is to not enroll athletes as long as they can because they may fail a semester (or quarter) and that would hurt the APR score. It is better to essentially kick them out after a semester where they met academic progress standards. It may not matter in many cases as the athletes may never return to college, but it does seem to be a disservice to the athlete’s academic career to stop them from taking classes when they are on scholarship. Although this is a very rare situation, this does appear to be a situation where the APR hurts academics more than it helps unless the school is willing to take a hit on their APR score.

[Ashlen]

How much does it cost to recruit football players at Tennessee?
06/09/2009

Dave Hooker of the Knoxville News Sentinel published an article this week looking at what the University of Tennessee Knoxville spends to recruit their incoming class of football players.  So far, Tennessee has spent $1,099,513.16 during the current fiscal year in order to get 22 commitments.  This ends up being almost $50,000 per commitment.  This number will grow once travel costs for the spring evaluation period is added to the figure.  According to Hooker, this can be a large expense. 

In 2006-07, Tennessee spent $1,311,893 recruiting football players.  This figure was $1,081,249 for 2007-08.  This year’s figure could be larger than the previous years once all costs are added up.  Tyler Johnson, an associate athletic director at Tennessee, attributed the high expenses this year to the coaching transition Tennessee is having with Phil Fulmer leaving and Lane Kiffin coming in.  Tennessee has landed some top ranked recruits, but one has to wonder if Tennessee spends $50,000+ per person trying to get top high school scholars and faculty to commit to an academic program at Tennessee.  I think it is a pretty good guess that the answer is no to that question. 

[Ashlen]

Alabama punished for their textbook scandal
06/11/2009

Sixteen sports teams at Alabama received punishment from the NCAA today as it was determined that 201 athletes from those teams improperly used their ability to get free textbooks under their athletic scholarship to provide textbooks for other students.  Four of the biggest violators were football players.  Alabama may have to vacate up to twenty one football victories from 2005-2007.  Men’s tennis and men’s and women’s track will also have to vacate some records and points.  The school was fined $43,900 and placed on probation until June 2012.  Alabama athletics will not lose any scholarships.  These penalties may have been harsher than usual given that Alabama is a repeat offender.

Given that Alabama is a repeat offender, one might wonder why the punishment wasn’t stiffer.  It may make sense to force a team to vacate wins in order to punish the teams that the violating players played on instead of punishing future teams that have not committed violations, but one has to wonder if Alabama was hit with a wet noodle given their previous violations.  Losing some already forgotten victories from a few years ago probably will not hurt Alabama’s recruiting much.  A restriction on scholarships probably would have hurt the school more, but I don’t know if it would hurt them enough to turn them away from their cheating ways.  Perhaps a TV ban or postseason play ban would have been most effective in curbing cheating, but this would hurt current players that have not been caught violating the rules.  However, hurting future players may be the only way to inflict meaningful punishment to deviant schools.  On the other hand, perhaps athletes signing on to play for a team that has recent violations should accept the risk of their team suffering from major punishment. 

The NCAA may have gone easy on Alabama because they self-reported the problems, but not applying meaningful punishment to violations means that teams will just keep self-reporting violations because they know they can get away with their violations.  There seems to be a cycle now where big-time teams that self-report problems essentially get away with cheating by getting meaningless penalties (Florida State’s vacated victories would be a rare exception to this given Bobby Bowden’s pursuit of all-time win record) while big-time teams that don’t self-report violations don’t get in trouble because the infractions committee does not have the teeth and resources to investigate problems.  This would be the case with USC right now.  I think the news we are all waiting for is how and if the NCAA punishes USC.  My guess is that it will be harsher than the Alabama penalty in terms of scholarship retractions, but will the NCAA make USC vacate BCS bowl wins?   

[Ashlen]

Suggestions for punishment and vacated revenue
06/15/2009

Matt Humphrey and company from the Orlando Sentinel came up with a list of twelve new punishments the NCAA should consider levying to future violators.  While many of the proposed punishments are humorous, the majority of the propositions are legitimate.  I found two of the propositions particularly interesting:

1. Impose multi-million-dollar fines on offending Division I football wrongdoers, then redistribute those funds to non-revenue generating sports teams at arch-rival schools (providing those teams are in good standing with the NCAA).

[…]

6. Take away one scheduled home game -- one season per booster-related NCAA violation. Sure, this potentially could do some deep financial damage within a community, but this will also discourage the enablers from contributing to NCAA rule breaking.

First let me discuss number one.  There is something to be said about the effects of a stiff monetary punishment.  I am sure that this would be much more effective than anything the NCAA uses now.  There are some equity issues with this proposal though.  First, a million dollar punishment would hurt a Sun Belt or MAC athletic program much more than a Big Ten or SEC program.  Also, big-time teams have a much stronger legal team to keep them out of trouble even when they commit violations.  Thus, the smaller programs would be hurt more seriously and more often than big programs.  On top of that, small teams that are caught violating the rules would be paying big teams that were able to avoid being caught or avoid getting harsh punishment.  Ouch. 

Number six is a legitimate punishment for all major violations even though the author intended it just for booster-related violations.  It is probably a safe assumption that only university insiders and hardcore followers are aware of the effect of punishments like scholarship suspensions and probation.  However, the campus community may understand the seriousness of violations when they lose something that changes things for casual observers like the loss of a home game.  The level of shame and anger from the campus community, in addition to the competitive and economic disadvantages of losing a home game, could help move athletic directors and coaches to play by the rules (or to try harder to not be caught). 

Number six also helped me come up with another proposal based on current punishments.  Teams that vacate games should refund gate and television revenue from vacated home games.  To a large extent, vacated games don’t exist, but teams are still generating money from these non-existent games.  Removing wins from seasons past generally is not going to cause any outrage.  Most athletic department officials and fans are looking forward, not backward.  Vacated games are quite meaningless unless there is a tangible punishment to go along with it.  One of the reasons why the NCAA probably uses vacated game penalties is because they are usually meaningless.  The fans may not realize it, but it can certainly be argued that they are being ripped off when they pay to see vacated games.   

[Ashlen]

CIS adds hurdles for potential defectors to the NCAA
06/16/2009

Earlier this month, I wrote a blog entry about Simon Fraser University applying to become the first Canadian school to play in the NCAA (Division II in this case).  Canadian Interuniversity Sport, the top level college sports governing body in Canada, has decided to not make things easy for schools wanting to play NCAA sports.  The CIS voted 55 to 20 to only allow CIS member schools to join the NCAA to play in sports that the CIS does not sponsor.  This decision may change the way Canadian schools look at the NCAA as it appears that schools wanted to only play in the NCAA for some sports while keeping other sports within the CIS.  While this may not change things for SFU, which is already participating in NAIA and CIS sports, the University of British Columbia may rethink applying for NCAA membership. 

Personally, I believe the CIS is making the right decision with this rule.  The policies of the CIS are much more consistent with the mission of universities than NCAA policies are.  Most of the CIS members are committed to the CIS.  This move will probably make some potential NCAA transfers stay in the CIS and keep the CIS stronger.  This may also keep equity imbalances out of many Canadian universities.  It is quite possible that some schools were looking to give NCAA athletic scholarships to football, basketball, and hockey athletes and keep minor sports in the CIS where they would not award athletic scholarships.  A CIS or NCAA only approach at least keeps things more equitable.   

[Ashlen]

Ballplayers drop out of high school to join the pros
06/18/2009

Earlier this year, basketball player Jeremy Tyler elected to drop out of high school to enter the pro leagues in Europe.  This week, 16 year old high school junior and star baseball player Bryce Harper elected to drop out of high school.  The plan is for Harper to take the GED exam and enroll in community college.  This plan will allow Harper to be drafted a year earlier than he would have if he stayed in high school.  Harper has been on the cover of Sports Illustrated and has been called the “LeBron James of baseball.” 

Tyler and Harper’s decision to drop out of high school to pursue a quicker path to the major leagues may shock many, but David Moulton of the Naples Daily News points out that many athletes do not have a traditional high school education:
 
In Europe, high school kids are pros in basketball. Hockey players have gotten paid to play for generations in Canada and Russia before the age they'd graduate from high school. In America, the golf, tennis and gymnastics academies may not pay their teens and pre-teens, but they sure do turn their childhoods and social development upside down.
 
True, many of these athletes that Moulton described may still get a high school diploma through sport academy schools or private tutors, but they are not a part of the traditional education system.  As Moulton points out, the idea of leaving school early is not necessarily a bad idea:

I say this is great. The kids that are most likely to get in trouble, or get their programs in trouble, are the ones who don't want to be there. It will hurt the product a bit, but help the culture of college sports. If the kids that want to get paid to play ball, go get paid to play ball.

As for the kids leaving high school to make money ASAP, some kids are making big mistakes. Oh well. That's life. Live and learn. They've got parents and a support system. What more can we do? Stop them? No. Let them go.

The reality is that an athlete like Harper is almost guaranteed of being a top draft pick, if not the top draft pick, and the money he will get from that will more than allow him to pay for college if he ever decides that he wants more education.  If Harper has the major league career that many thinks he will, Harper could probably afford to build a chain of liberal arts colleges if he wanted to. 

The American educational system makes this decision a no brainer for athletes like Harper.  If he stayed in school, he would probably be surrounded by jock sniffers in and out of the school that would make it difficult for him to get a decent education.  Chances are he would not take school seriously as he already knows that he is about to sign a mega contract that will set him up for life.  On the other hand, if he ends up being terrible in the major leagues, he can always take his GED to community college or even many decent four year colleges and end up with a perfectly acceptable college education just like his peers.  For better or for worse, the American higher education system does not close their doors to high school dropouts.  For an education perspective, Harper’s decision makes complete sense to me.

Although this may make sense for Harper, there is a concern that lower quality high school athletes may drop out of school even if they do not have a legitimate shot of making money in the big leagues.  That is a concern, but as Moulton pointed out, students and their parents will have to make the best decision.  The decision to focus on becoming an elite athlete, even if that means staying in school until the end of college eligibility, is a decision that has potentially negative academic ramifications.  Hopefully students and parents will make informed decisions, but as long as there are teams willing to pay teenagers lots of money to play youth games, there will be good and bad decisions made.  However, as I stated earlier, drop outs will always have a chance to obtain an education.  On the other hand, it is impossible to recover years of lost earnings and the ability to play extra years at one’s physical peak. 

Many pundits have argued that athletes should be required to graduate from college, much less high school, in order to play major league sports.  I disagree with this assertion.  Athletes have their employment rights trampled on enough as it is with forced amateurism, entry age restrictions, salary caps, and entry drafts.  Adding more regulation to the mix is not going to solve anything.  If society wants athletes to be more academically focused, perhaps the education system needs to start focusing their attention on academic matters instead of entertainment focused sports.  K-12 schools and colleges that are addicted to sports helps fuel a system where teenagers can get millions of dollars and the correlated level of public adoration for playing games.  The proliferation of media covering youth sports naturally leads to a situation where young athletes and the families feel they should be compensated for providing the key ingredient in a vast entertainment enterprise. 

[Ashlen]

An interesting take on academic punishments
06/23/2009

Adam Van Brimmer of the Savannah Morning News had an interesting take on the way the NCAA penalized Florida State for their recent academic scandal:

Florida State, meanwhile, will be docked 14 wins for an academic cheating scandal in which staffers provided exam answers and typed papers for players. The sanctions also include the loss of four scholarships over the next two years.The scholarship reductions would seem a stiff penalty until you consider teams that fall short of the Academic Progress Rate (APR) face similar penalties.When cheating and underachieving are treated equally, the system is broken. Worse, it is set up for abuse.

Van Brimmer and I share the opinion that vacated victories are a meaningless punishment.  Aside from that, Florida State’s other punishment, loss of a few scholarships, is pretty much the same punishment they would have had if they scored a low APR score.  Based on that, it is much more logical for schools to cheat academically instead of getting low APR scores and potentially having some players be academically ineligible because there is a good chance that they would get away with cheating instead of having guaranteed punishments by doing things a more honest way.  The NCAA is solidifying that fact that cheating does pay off in college sports.       

[Ashlen]

Should cheerleading be a varsity sport?
06/23/2009

The AP had an interesting story this past week about the increase in schools creating varsity cheerleading teams.  According to the article, cheerleading is not an NCAA sport nor is it on the radar for becoming an NCAA sport anytime soon.  The only cheerleading national championship is organized by the for-profit National Cheerleaders Association. 

While cheerleading coaches defend the legitimacy of cheerleading being a varsity sport, others believe that cheerleading is used by athletic departments as a cheap way to maintain Title IX compliance.  One of those against varsity cheerleading is Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an attorney for the Women’s Sports Foundation:

"Right now girls are vastly underrepresented on college rosters," said Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an attorney for the Women's Sports Foundation. "I would hate to see viable sports that lead to Olympic possibilities, international opportunities, thwarted in favor of a sport that doesn't lead to any of those."   

Oddly enough, the National Cheerleaders Association also believes that cheerleaders should not a varsity sport and should stay as a support team to other athletic teams:

"Most of the participants are sideline cheerleaders," said Bill Boggs, who runs the [NCA] competitions. "The thing about cheerleading at the collegiate level is that it is so random as far as what they are considered, who they report to. Some of them are under athletics, some are under activities, some are under club sports, some of them even report to the band."Karen Halterman, a senior vice president of NCA, said even though her group hosts the competitions, it believes cheerleading should remain a support activity."This is absolutely a sport for those teams that want to go out and practice their technical skill," she said. "However, cheerleading with just these few exceptions that are out there, always has as its number one responsibility, and still what they do, is support their university and other athletes. That's what we prefer."

It is difficult to determine whether cheerleading is a sport or not.  To some it will be, but to others, even activities like golf aren’t sports.  Like gymnastics, there is no doubt that there is a physical aspect to it.  One could make the argument that if gymnastics is a sport, cheerleading should be a sport as well.  Of course, another argument could be made that cheerleading is just a subset of gymnastics. 

Either way, there are probably other factors why people would be opposed to cheerleading being a varsity sport.  Cheerleading certainly holds certain stereotypes about women being ancillary to male athletes.  Some may feel then that the escalation of cheerleading is a step backwards in equalizing sports for the genders.  It is unclear to me why Hogshead-Makar believes that only international and Olympic type sports are “viable” as compared to regional sports.  Cheerleading is one of the few women’s sporting activities with  legitimate professional opportunities, but those professional opportunities are support activities for basketball and football teams. 

I’m also not clear on exactly why the NCA prefers cheerleading being a support activity rather than a varsity sport, but there are some legitimate reasons why they may feel that way.  First, an influx in varsity cheerleading teams may lead to the NCAA sanctioning it which could ruin the NCA’s reason for existing.  Also, there almost certainly would be some competitive disparities between varsity teams and club/band run teams.  The lower level teams may not feel like showing up and/or the higher level teams may want to only compete against better quality opponents.  Again, this could ruin the NCA.  Perhaps the NCA does not want to regulate varsity sports.   

In the end of the day, however, athletic departments are adding varsity cheerleading because it is a cheap way to comply with Title IX.  I doubt any of the schools that have added it had an epiphany that cheerleading should be treated as a sport for sporting reasons.  To that extent, varsity cheerleaders are still playing a support role to male revenue sports.  Instead of supporting them on the field, they are supporting them by freeing up resources that the athletic department can spend  on football and basketball.

[Ashlen]

McNulty accurately describes the college sports landscape
06/25/2009
   
The Naples Daily News ran an article yesterday written by sports columnist Ray McNulty where the author mocks the NCAA’s public display of anger and shame regarding Florida State’s recent academic scandal. McNulty points out the hypocrisy of having academic standards in a win at all cost environment. Many people believe that college athletics can be reformed to be ethical and academically focused while maintaining a high level of competitive intensity, but McNulty surmises that the only way for there can be integrity in athletics is to have the athletes be real students that also happen to enjoy a sport instead of having scholarship paid athletes dressed up as scholars. I would have to agree with that sentiment.

[Ashlen]

Jim Delany and Bob Knight on college basketball
06/25/2009

USA Today published two articles yesterday discussing why many believe that college basketball is the most corrupt sport within college athletics today. Jim Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, explained the atmosphere in college basketball:

Yet the sport "carries with it the seed of its own destruction in the sense that college basketball, more than any other sport, has been touched by gambling," Delany says. "It (also) has had the most difficult youth environment to recruit in."And the thing that really concerns me is that among top 100 programs, I believe if you asked coaches, there'd be a pretty strong consensus around 10 that are not in substantial compliance. And there might be another 15 that people really suspect are not in substantial compliance."

[…]

"If those are accurate perceptions," he says, "then you have an environment where maybe one out of every four in the top are considered to be out of compliance in a substantial way or possibly out of compliance. That creates a great deal of cynicism. And I think it drives the conduct and behavior of others."

The NCAA isn’t totally ignoring the situation either:

The NCAA is trying to do more, breaking off three members of its 20-person enforcement staff to monitor basketball, the first time it has focused enforcement staff on a single sport.

Meanwhile, one of the most controversial figures in men’s college basketball, Bob Knight, stated that some basketball players today may not be real students:

"What is the integrity of a kid who plays for an NCAA team that goes to Final Four, or wins the championship, who has passed six hours and then goes on to play the next semester without ever going to class?" Knight says. "What they should do is each team going into the NCAA tournament should have to submit a roster … listing the players and their grade-point averages and classes they've attended to that date the second semester. It would help tremendously in making sure it's students playing for the national championship rather than hired players."

Knight also addressed the problems with AAU club teams and coaches:

More advice from Knight: Get AAU and other nonprofessional, potentially unscrupulous summer-league coaches out of the recruiting process. Require high school-age players to play summer ball within some specified range of their schools and "that the coach be a high school or junior varsity coach, not some (jerk) from downtown somewhere."

Knight’s call for academic transparency is not a new recommendation. The Drake Group, among others, have been advocating this position for many years. The “hired gun” mentality isn’t just a problem with the one and done basketball players. There are concerns that even non-superstar athletes take classes from friendly professors in lower difficulty classes or vague independent study courses.

Although violations of amateurism rules are a concern, the violation of academic rules and standards is of greater concern. It is nice to see Coach Knight addressing this issue. The NCAA has consistently said that one year of college is better than none in regards to one and done players, but some of these athletes may be getting much less than one proper year of college. Of course, it is questionable if full term athletes, basketball players or not, are able to receive one proper year of college in the traditional sense.