The NCAA released their latest Graduation Success Rate report on Thursday. This year’s iteration tracks the rate of student-athletes who began college between 2003 and 2006 who have completed their degree as of 2013. Each player is given a 6 year grace period to return to campus, finish their education, and be counted as a graduate.
UConn’s men’s basketball team registered a dismal GSR of 8%.
In terms of raw numbers, that means that 1 out of 12 eligible UConn freshman between 2003 and 2006 received their degree. It hardly seems a sample size worth dwelling on, but that hasn’t stopped the red-faced moralists of the internet from using it to bolster their negative views of the program.
Taking a closer look, 26 players debuted for UConn in the allotted timeframe. Seven were walk-on athletes — who both don’t count, and probably graduated. Six transferred from the university — the NCAA is a little vague on these players, stating, “The NCAA’s Graduation Success Rate includes transfer students and student-athletes who leave in good academic standing.” Did Doug Wiggins leave in good academic standing? Does he count against UConn’s GSR or UMass’s, where he also failed to graduate?
That leaves 13 players. Per university policy, UConn will not release the academic records of their students, so we’re left guessing which 12 players count towards the GSR.
The 13 players…
Josh Boone – left UConn after his junior season. Was drafted in the 1st round of the NBA draft. According to www.basketball-reference.com Boone made $5,456,088 between 2006 and 2010 during his NBA tenure. After playing in China for a year, Boone spent 2013 in the NBA D-League.
Ed Nelson – transferred to UConn from Georgia Tech. He may not count towards the GSR since he enrolled at Georgia Tech in 2001 before winding up in Storrs. Regardless, Nelson has had a very successful basketball career playing in Argentina.
Charlie Villanueva – left UConn after only two seasons. Was an NBA lottery pick. Has made over $40 million so far in his career.
Marcus Williams – left UConn after his junior year. Was a 1st round NBA draft pick. Despite flaming out in the NBA after the 2010 season and heading to Europe, Williams’s four years in the league netted him nearly $4.4 million.
Rudy Gay – left UConn after his sophomore season. Was an NBA lottery pick. Has made over $55 million thus far in his career (with a minimum of $37 million more heading his way in the final two years of his contract).
A.J. Price – spent four years on campus at UConn, but it’s unclear if he graduated. Price was a 2nd round NBA draft pick and has made nearly $3 million in the league.
Jeff Adrien – another four-year player, it’s unclear if Adrien earned his degree, but he is also playing in the NBA. After heading to Spain for a season after college, Adrien has stuck in the league, earning $1.4 million so far with another $900k coming his way this season.
Craig Austrie – could he be the lone graduate? Austrie played only 5 games in the NBA D-League before being cut. He now runs his own business — a basketball school.
Jerome Dyson – played all four seasons at UConn. Dyson caught on with the Hornets for 9 games in 2012 before being traded to, and waived by, the Suns. Dyson has since gone overseas where he plays professionally in Israel.
Stanley Robinson – played all four seasons at UConn. After an unsuccessful D-League shot, Robinson stopped playing professionally.
Jonathan Mandeldove – it does not appear Mandeldove graduated from UConn according to this CNN story.
Gavin Edwards – according to this 2012 Courant story, it appears Edwards returned to UConn to finish his degree after playing professionally in Greece. We don’t know if he followed through with it.
Hasheem Thabeet – left UConn after three seasons. An NBA lottery pick, Thabeet has earned over $15.5 million thus far in his NBA career.
If the true measure of a college education is to prepare a student for their post-educational career, that 8% GSR certainly tells a different story than the list above.
If our issue with the graduation rate is fairness, who is being slighted? Certainly not Rudy Gay. Certainly not the athletic department that profited immensely from the players listed — a handful of whom led the 2009 Final Four team.
In an ideal world, athletes would be students first and players second. But are we that naive? There is huge money to be made in college basketball and the very last ones to touch it are the players. The university provides a stage, the players provide the show. The audience provides the funding to do it all again next year. Those lucky enough to have an escape route, like Gay or Thabeet should hardly be faulted for taking a job with incredible financial advantages. Answer this honestly: how would Rudy Gay’s financial situation be more secure right now with a college degree?
The world of college basketball is far from ideal and nonsensical stats like the GSR only reenforce the same negative stereotypes of the young, black men playing NCAA basketball that have kept them from sharing in the profits earned by their universities and the NCAA.
I definitely saw Ed Nelson walk at graduation in 2008, if that counts for anything.
I don’t think he counts. Kevin Duffy tweeted this earlier:
I’d wager it’s Austrie.
What total BS. Eight percent is eight percent. Did every school get under ten?
Um…no. The first line of the report on the study says “Division I student-athletes who entered college in 2006 earned their degrees at a rate of 82 percent – the highest ever.”
So the average is 82% , UConn basketball got 8 and you contort yourself to say it’s just fine.
You should be ashamed of yourself, and so should the school.
Which would you consider the more pertinent statistic; number of students who graduate with a communications degree or percentage of communications students that will end up with a job in their chosen field?
Graduation is a means to an end. These players crafted careers in their chosen field via their work at the university. It’s a success.
This is a beautifully written piece and everyone who works for this site is, frankly, brilliant.
College basketball is supposed to be about building student athletes, not being a minor league developmental team. At one point, Stanley Robinson was never even enrolled in classes, but played for Coach Calhoun. And what is he doin now, after he was used by the university to win games during his eligiblity but never thought of enoigh to even have the veneer of legitacy as a student? The logical end of your justification – that they went on to successful pro hoops careers – means that college hoops is about making money and trainin basketball players and not educating students. If so, lets stop with the pretense of amateur athletics and start paying the kids. They are entertainers making millions for coaches. I got paid to write for newspapers in college outside of classes, and went on to work at newspapers after I graduated. That’s the key word here: graduated. It’s a failure for these players not to have graduated.