1:02 pm | March 19, 2019 | Go to Source | Author:
March Madness is here. The men’s and women’s tournaments create nationwide hype and drama that is on par with that of any other sport.
The men’s tournament has brought us the excitement of Phi Slama Jama in the 1980s and the Michigan Fab Five in the 1990s, Cinderella teams such as Gonzaga, Butler and Loyola, and amazing players such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Steph Curry and now Zion Williamson. The women’s tournament has produced amazing storylines through the years with the dominance of Connecticut and Tennessee and world-class performances from Brittney Griner, Lisa Leslie, Cheryl Miller, Diana Taurasi, Rebecca Lobo and now Sabrina Ionescu, Asia Durr and Arike Ogunbowale.
March Madness is the pinnacle event for many college basketball student-athletes. These highly skilled men and women dream of this tournament for years. For most participants, their collegiate careers represent their last chance to play basketball at such an elite level. Only 1.2 percent of all the men and less than 1 percent of the women playing NCAA basketball will advance to the professional level. However, their time on the court combined with their time in the classroom make them highly marketable leaders in their communities. It is imperative that these student-athletes receive a high-quality education and graduate with a meaningful college degree. More importantly, we need to ensure race and gender are not barriers for the student-athletes on the road to receiving a college degree and professional success.
Tuesday, the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida released its annual “Keeping Score When It Counts: Academic Progress/Graduation Success Rate Study of 2019 NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament Teams.” The report covers the basketball student-athlete Graduation Success Rate (GSR) and Academic Progress Rate (APR) for the 68 men’s tournament teams and 64 women’s tournament teams.
As usual, the women’s teams did significantly better than the men’s teams in all the categories we measure. Fifteen women’s teams scored a perfect APR score of 1,000 (vs. eight men’s teams). There were 29 women’s teams with a 100 percent graduation rate (vs. 16 men’s teams). Student-athletes on women’s basketball teams graduate at a significantly higher rate than student-athletes on men’s basketball teams. The twist this year was that the GSR gap between African-American and white student-athletes decreased for the men while increasing for the women’s teams.
The overall 92 percent GSR for women’s tournament teams tied last year’s all-time best. The men’s tournament teams overall GSR was 81 percent, which marked its all-time best.
In 2004, the NCAA introduced the APR as part of an academic reform package designed to more accurately measure student-athletes’ academic success as well as improve graduation rates at member institutions. The APR holds each team accountable for the success of student-athletes in the classroom and their progress toward graduation. Individual teams are penalized if they fall below an APR score of 930, which is an expected graduation rate of 50 percent of its student-athletes.
An important milestone achieved by the men’s tournament teams this year was that it marked the second year that not a single men’s team fell below the NCAA’s benchmark of a 930 APR. There was only one women’s team that fell below this standard. The average APR for the men’s basketball tournament teams was 973, the same as in 2018, while the average APR for the women’s basketball tournament teams decreased from 987 in 2018 to a still-lofty 986 in 2019.
The four No. 1 seeds in the men’s tournament, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia and Gonzaga, have APRs of 1,000, 1,000, 966 and 995, respectively. Kentucky and Gonzaga matched their scores from last year, while North Carolina improved by 15 points and Virginia improved by nine. The four No. 1 seeds in the women’s tournament, Mississippi State, Louisville, Baylor and Notre Dame, have APRs of 987, 1000, 981 and 1,000, respectively. Louisville and Notre Dame’s scores remain unchanged, while Baylor increased by nine points and Mississippi State increased by five.
A deeper look into the gap
The 2018 College Sport Racial and Gender Report Card showed that 53.6 percent of the Division I men’s basketball players and 43 percent of the Division I women’s players were African-American. As we dug into the GSR numbers, we found the biggest area of concern continues to be fact that white men’s players in this year’s tournament field had a GSR that was 13 percentage points higher than that of African-American players. The gap between white and African-American women’s players is 8 percentage points.
Delise S. O’Meally, the executive director of the Institute for Sport and Social Justice, said of the gap: “The graduation rates disparity between African-American athletes and white athletes has many causes, from lack of adequate primary and secondary schools, exploitation by coaches who are driven to win rather than focus on the needs of the student-athlete, to historical suppression which results in many of these athletes still being the first in their family to go to college. If there is no tradition of college in a family, it is immensely more difficult to maneuver through the system and complete a degree. Knowing these challenges, it is incumbent on universities to create an environment for success for all student-athletes.”
The encouraging news is there has been steady improvement in the GSR rates, and over the years we have observed a small but consistent decrease in the gap between African-American and white graduation rates for men’s and women’s tournament teams. This year’s GSR gap among men was an all-time low, decreasing from 18 percentage points last year.
It is interesting that the GSR gap among women actually increased by 5 percentage points, although it must be noted that last year’s gap was an all-time low of 3 percentage points.
Nonetheless, the shrinking racial gaps for the men’s tournament teams is a promising sign of progress. However, success will only be achieved when these numbers get closer to zero in the years ahead.
Emphasizing a focus on academic development
The NCAA uses the APR and GSR metrics to attempt to motivate member schools to meet specific standards. The revised NCAA APR standards took effect in 2016, and if schools do not meet the minimum APR of 930, the NCAA will levy sanctions that consist of progressive penalties ranging from loss of scholarships to loss of postseason competition to restricted NCAA membership.
Arne Duncan, the former Secretary of Education and current head of the Knight Commission, noted that “the current APR is pegged at a 930 score that is the equivalent of a 50 percent graduation rate. This standard is too low. This year every men’s and women’s tournament team beat that low mark. I strongly urge that the minimum APR should be raised to the equivalent a 60 percent graduation rate standard. If we had raised the bar to an equivalent of a 60 percent graduation rate this year, all 64 (100 percent) of the women’s tournament teams and 63 (93 percent) of the 68 men’s tournament teams would have met this mark.”
I completely agree with Duncan’s proposal and I also urge that schools be required to give student-athletes they are recruiting their record for graduating all student-athletes broken down by race. That would be yet another incentive for schools that need improvement to put the resources into increasing their graduation rates.
Race remains a continuing academic issue, not only in college sports, but also in higher education in general. The 13 percentage point gap between graduation rates (GSR) for white and African-American male basketball student-athletes and eight percentage point gap among the women demonstrates that.
We can look at the general student population using the FED (Federal) Graduation Rates which is calculated in a different way. African-American males who are not student-athletes graduate at a 41 percent rate while African-American females who are not student-athletes graduate at a rate of 51 percent. White males who are not student-athletes graduate at a 67 percent rate while white females who are not student-athletes graduate at a rate of 72 percent. The gap is 26 percent for white and African-American male students and 21 percent for white and African-American female students
The report shows we can do better when we work at it. Now we need to raise the expectation higher with a 60 percent GSR equivalent rate at the minimum. We can do it. We have to do for the good of our student-athletes and their future, especially for the 98.8 percent of all the men and more than 99 percent of the women playing in the tournaments who will not play at the professional level.
David Zimmerman contributed to this column.
Richard E. Lapchick is the chair of the DeVos Sport Business Management Graduate Program at the University of Central Florida. Lapchick also directs UCF’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, is the author of 17 books and the annual Racial and Gender Report Card, and is the president of the Institute for Sport and Social Justice. He has been a regular commentator for ESPN.com on issues of diversity in sport. Follow him on Twitter @richardlapchick and on Facebook.
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