Class program

Kansas has already defeated Syracuse where it counts most

My alma mater, Stanford, bowed out of the NCAA Tournament in the second round, and once Marquette blitzed Kentucky in the regionals, I had about as much chance of winning my pool as Anna Nicole Smith has of winning an Oscar. To tell you the truth, I couldn't care less which wealthy coach, Jim Boeheim of Syracuse or Roy Williams of Kansas, finally gets to put a championship trophy in his house. However, I still have a rooting interest in the finals Monday night: I'm a Kansas man, and unless you're a Syracuse graduate, you should jump on the Jayhawks' bandwagon with me.

Of course, if you're a Syracuse graduate, chances are you weren't a Syracuse basketball player, which is why most of the country should be pulling for Kansas to take home the title. Root for the Jayhawks because they have a decisive edge over the Orangemen in a crucial category that somehow never shows up in fancy graphics during the CBS telecast -- graduation rate. According to a recently released study that tracked students who began college from 1992 to 1995 and allowed a player six years to graduate, Kansas graduated 70 percent of its players. Syracuse graduated only 25 percent of its players, and, incredibly, it was one of 13 schools in this year's tournament that didn't graduate a single African-American player over that span. Not one.

Syracuse is far from the only school that should be embarrassed by the findings of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. Of the programs that reached the Sweet 16 this season, only six graduated at least half their players during the span of the study, and only seven graduated at least half of their black players. If the tournament rewarded diplomas instead of dunks, several big-name schools, such as Arizona (15 percent) and Maryland (14 percent), never would have made it out of the first round. But special dishonorable mention has to go to Oklahoma, which saw none of its players graduate during those six years.

Boeheim and Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson are among those who have criticized the numbers as misleading because the study didn't give schools credit for players who transferred and ultimately got their degrees from other institutions, or for junior college players who had graduated. But even allowing for a few such cases, the central conclusion of the report still stands up: Men's basketball has the worst graduation rates in all of college sports. It sorely needs the example of more programs that recruit high school players capable of handling college work and that provide those players with the necessary academic support once they arrive on campus.

That's why I'll be chanting "Rock, chalk, Jayhawk," as Kansas fans do, while I watch the game. (Well, no I won't, because it sounds kind of weird, but you get the idea.) I'll root for Kansas to continue proving that it's possible to be an elite program while also remembering that the real mission of an academic institution isn't to win the Midwest Regional, but to educate its students. Despite the discouraging findings of the study, there are still several programs that manage to be more than basketball factories, and the more those schools win, the more incentive there will be for others to follow their lead. High school recruits should know more than how many times their prospective teams will appear on TV. They should know that schools such as Stanford, Notre Dame, Duke, Butler and Kansas all have graduation rates of 70 percent or above.

It's hard to fault Syracuse for bringing in a player like Carmelo Anthony, who's almost certain to spend only one year at the school.Six years from now Anthony will probably have more NBA triple-doubles than college credits. But if Anthony leads the Orangemen to the title, more top talent will surely head to Syracuse over the next few years, enhancing a program that, if the numbers are to be believed, hasn't fulfilled its promise to many of its athletes. So what do you say to that possibility?

Go Kansas.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button issue every Monday on SI.com.

 

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