NCAAB: Butler, West Virginia Lose On Court, Win In Classroom

By Troy A. Sparks

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Here's some encouraging news in college basketball: Both Butler and West Virginia lost to Duke in the Final Four. 

The Blue Devils won the National Championship and still lost to both teams in the classroom.

Michigan State joined the Bulldogs and Mountaineers in achieving a satisfactory mark by the NCAA.

Jeez, should we turn flips because those teams actually did some classwork? Or did some academic adviser write the research papers for the ballplayers?

The biggest surprise is Huggins' West Virginia team. His previous team, Cincinnati, had a graduation rate of zero.

That means to the casual observer that they're dumb as a doorknob. But I forgot, winning triumphs good academics.

And why should that mattered to that institution at the time?  Many of the players were junior college transfers and thought about their NBA plans instead of a backup plan.

When you buy a basketball program at whatever college game you attend, look at the majors of the players.  Most of them will say, "Communications", "Sports Management", or something like that.

Once a high school player gets accepted into a Division I school, the athletic department will determine which Mickey Mouse classes they will take to stay eligible. 

Huggins doesn't care about that academic stuff. It's a dog and pony show to use as a selling point for his next coaching stop - if anybody else wants him.

You can use the argument that the star players take the easy classes, and the scrubs on the bench study for a real job after college.

We know money drives the train in college basketball. Does anyone care about the academic progress of the Final Four teams? What about the other student-athletes in other sports? They count too.