Fewer NCAA teams have failing APR's

[griztasteslikechicken]

From the Seattle Times:

North Carolina, Pitt, Louisville and UConn share a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Their graduation rates have less in common.
The numbers range from 86% at North Carolina to 33% at UConn, according to a report released Monday by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the Univ. of Central Florida. Louisville was at 42% and Pitt at 69%.
The study also found that fewer tournament teams have failing APR rates than last year. 21 of the 65 (32%) teams this year have APR's under 925 (the NCAA cutoff for penalties). Last year, 35 of the 65 (53%) of the NCAA tournament teams had sub 925 APR's.
Graduation rates remain similar to last year. 40 teams had graduatin rates less than 50%. Graduation rates were based on whether freshman who entered college between '98-'99 and '01-'02 school years earned diplomas within 6 years.
Seven teams had 100% graduation rates. Binghamton, Florida St., Marquette, Robert Morris, Utah St., Wake Forest and Western Ky. all had 100% graduation rates.
The 5 lowest graduation rates were Cal St. Northridge (8%), Maryland (10%), PORTLAND ST. (17%), Arizona (20%) and Clemson (29%).
The study noted the ongoing gaps between the graduation rates of white and African-American players. 25 tournament teams had a gap of 20 percentage points or more between the two groups.

[GrizinWashington]

17% is deplorable for PSU and reflects extremely poorly on the Big Sky.

[SonomaCat]

Does a school get dinged for their student-athletes that transfer to other schools?

The guys who exhaust their eligibility and aren't even close to graduating (and don't make any effort to) are problems that I think schools can and should address. But I have to imagine that a lot of the situations are really beyond their control ... especially at smaller schools where the carrot to stick around and wait a couple years for playing time just isn't there due to the relative lack of prestige of the program.