Cal's Squad Drops To 7 1/2-Year Low In Grades, Lowest In SEC

Updated: 8:11 AM ET Sun, May. 02, 2010

Calipari's squad posts worst grades of UK teams
GPA for men's basketball drops to 7 1/2-year low; among lowest in SEC, point behind Louisville

By Jerry Tipton / jtipton@herald-leader.com

John Calipari's first University of Kentucky team performed much better on the court than in the classroom. Its fall semester grades were the worst of all 20 UK athletic teams and the worst of any UK men's basketball team since spring 2002.

The same Kentucky team that won the Southeastern Conference regular-season and post-season tournament championships had a cumulative grade-point average of 2.025 for the fall semester, according to records obtained by the Herald-Leader through an open records request. That was the worst of nine SEC schools that gave their men's basketball GPAs to the newspaper.

Among teams outside the SEC willing to provide their GPAs for the fall semester, Duke (3.01), Louisville (3.0) and Kansas (2.95) all outperformed Kentucky.

"I was disappointed," UK President Lee T. Todd Jr. said recently.

"It's not something we're happy with, I'll tell you that," said Sandy Bell, UK's senior associate athletic director and the person in charge of student services. "And we'll be working on it to get it up. We certainly anticipate that going up in the spring" semester.

Through a spokesman, Calipari and UK Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart declined to be interviewed for this story, citing "privacy concerns."

The UK players' individual GPAs in the fall semester ranged from 3.59 to 1.667. Four were at 2.0 or lower. Two were better than 3.0. (UK released only the individual averages, not the names of players who made the grades.)

Bell noted that UK players must have had at least a 1.8 grade-point average in the fall semester to be eligible in the spring, according to NCAA rules. Yet two UK players had GPAs below that standard: 1.667 and 1.765.

The minimum GPA requirement of 1.8 does not take effect until the start of an athlete's second year, so the 1.667 and 1.765 averages apparently belonged to players in their first years.

Athletes and their academic performance is a perennial topic. This year, the discussion reached a higher level when, in the midst of March Madness, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan questioned how seriously some schools take academic performance by athletes. Duncan proposed that teams with graduation rates of less than 40 percent be banned from post-season play. (Kentucky's rate for the most recent group of men's basketball athletes tracked was 31 percent.)

After the basketball season ended and five UK players entered their names in the NBA Draft, the NCAA named a new chief, Mark A. Emmert, who has said he will continue the emphasis his predecessor, the late Myles Brand, put on academic requirements for athletes. Todd recently became a member of the NCAA Division I Board that Emmert will work with to improve academic performance.

The UK men's basketball team GPA for the fall semester fell short of the average for all undergraduate students (2.919) and for all freshmen at the school (2.818).

In December, Calipari proudly noted that freshman John Wall had all A's and B's in the fall semester, and UK touted three seniors plus junior Patrick Patterson on target to graduate this spring. So the burden of the 2.025 GPA appeared to fall on some combination of other players.

Bell cautioned against the assumption that any one group of players should be held responsible for the team grade-point average.

"It's not the freshmen," she said. "It's not the seniors. It's not any one group. It's kind of across the board and for a lot of different reasons."

Bell suggested that the change in coaches, from Billy Gillispie to Calipari, adversely affected academic performance as players and a new staff adjusted to each other and to UK's academic standards. She also said upperclassmen were taking difficult classes to complete requirements for a degree.

Every college coach must balance the desire for standout players with the need to have athletes who can succeed as students. Todd asked Calipari about that high-wire act before offering him the coaching job last spring.

After noting that 19 of the 22 players who played four seasons for him at the University of Memphis graduated, Calipari told the UK president that he placed great importance on classroom performance.