Christian Polk

[Russ Smith]

I still don't think they can recruit the athletes to win a championship. It's not the most difficult school to get into, but they don't accept mediocre students. It's still easier for UCLA to get an exception for an OK student -- two schools with somewhat comparable entrance requirements. Gonzaga doesn't have an "ability to benefit" exemption.

It's interesting because it's pretty widely believed on UCLA sites that the reason they took Chace Stanback instead of Austin Daye(son of UCLA player Darren) is that Daye didn't have the grades. During their junior years UCLA evaluates a kid academically and if the grades aren't good enough they typically have to decide can he improve enough to get through admissions(like mata-real did) or not. With Daye it was widely reported by UCLA recruiting gurus that they stopped recruiting him because of his grades.

He of course qualified for Gonzaga and at least so far appears to be markedly better than Stanback.

I thought everyone made exceptions for athletes even stanford does is it really true Gonzaga can't?

 

[Skkorpion]

Catholic schools like Gonzaga have a long history of making exceptions for good hoops players who are poor students.

None of you really think Patrick Ewing and Alan Iverson had the necessary courses and grades to get into Georgetown, do you?

How about Xavier? I think their admission policy is rather flexible.

When I was at Notre Dame, our top 20 team, led by Austin Carr, had a 6'8" center named Sid Catlett from Washington DC.

He was in a summer school course with me. He showed the first day, was never seen again and passed the course.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Catholic schools like Gonzaga have a long history of making exceptions for good hoops players who are poor students.

None of you really think Patrick Ewing and Alan Iverson had the necessary courses and grades to get into Georgetown, do you?

How about Xavier? I think their admission policy is rather flexible.

When I was at Notre Dame, our top 20 team, led by Austin Carr, had a 6'8" center named Sid Catlett from Washington DC.

He was in a summer school course with me. He showed the first day, was never seen again and passed the course.

georgetown is episcapalean (sp?). and ewing and iverson were high school academic all americans.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

btw, anyone wanna buy a bridge?

 

[hafey]

Georgetown is Jesuit and thus Catholic

 

[PoolBoy]

iverson was an academic all american? i can hear it now.

we talkin about studying ms.anderson. studying. do you know how ridiculous this is. have you seen my GPA. my test scores? and we talkin about studying? i know, i think its crazy too.

 

[Gaddabout]

It's interesting because it's pretty widely believed on UCLA sites that the reason they took Chace Stanback instead of Austin Daye(son of UCLA player Darren) is that Daye didn't have the grades. During their junior years UCLA evaluates a kid academically and if the grades aren't good enough they typically have to decide can he improve enough to get through admissions(like mata-real did) or not. With Daye it was widely reported by UCLA recruiting gurus that they stopped recruiting him because of his grades.

He of course qualified for Gonzaga and at least so far appears to be markedly better than Stanback.

I thought everyone made exceptions for athletes even stanford does is it really true Gonzaga can't?

Didn't say Gonzaga can't have exceptions, I said they didn't come as frequently. I'm guessing UCLA used up all of their exceptions for football -- football teams spend all of an athletic department's good will in admissions. Read a few months ago that 70 percent of UCLA's male athletes got in on exceptions. Gonzaga doesn't have a football team and all you have to do is look down the roster and recognize exceptions for their basketball team don't come easy.

Gonzaga doesn't have the "ability to benefit" rule, which allows athletes with learning disabilities to get in as long as they get through NCAA admissions (at the discretion of the admissions office). Most Pac-10 schools do. Not really sure where UCLA stands on that one.

 

[Russ Smith]

Didn't say Gonzaga can't have exceptions, I said they didn't come as frequently. I'm guessing UCLA used up all of their exceptions for football -- football teams spend all of an athletic department's good will in admissions. Read a few months ago that 70 percent of UCLA's male athletes got in on exceptions. Gonzaga doesn't have a football team and all you have to do is look down the roster and recognize exceptions for their basketball team don't come easy.

Gonzaga doesn't have the "ability to benefit" rule, which allows athletes with learning disabilities to get in as long as they get through NCAA admissions (at the discretion of the admissions office). Most Pac-10 schools do. Not really sure where UCLA stands on that one.

I believe UCLA does have that not sure though. I know for example UCLA admissions wouldn't accept Schea Cotton's test score because he took it untimed with an oversized font because he had a learning disability. UCLA wouldn't accept it and Cotton wound up in Juco and then at Alabama, but that was over 10 years ago.

UCLA absolutely takes special admits in particular with football, virtually every kid on the football roster from Crenshaw is a special admit.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

The only reason Jeremy Pargo is at Gonzaga is because nobody in the power conferences would touch him due to his academics. And let's not forget mid-major schools like Fresno State, Utah, and Boise are allowed to take partial qualifiers which gets them in a few doors Pac-10 schools can't.

Mid-majors aren't completely helpless against major schools in that regard. Why else do you think Andre Miller went to Utah when he was one of the bets payers in LA his graduating year? It was becuse he was a Prop. 48 kid and UCLA, UA, and USC couldn't touch him.

 

[Russ Smith]

Speaking of academics and recruiting the new rule change on Prepschools takes effect now so this is the last year you'll see schools loading up on kids who spent a year at prep and then magically got 3-4 core classes upgraded so their lower test score passed(sliding scale higher GPA = lower test score required). Memphis had 6 kids on their roster this year from prepschools, 5 of them played for the same coach 3 at Laurinburg, then he went to Patterson school and 2 more from there went to Memphis. During the title game Billy Packer mentioned that one year Memphis had 7 guys who had played at Laurinburg on their roster. Matt Simkins is their prepschool guy this year from Patterson he's the 9th kid in 5 years to have played for Chris Chaney in prepschool and wind up at Memphis. We were having this discussion on a UCLA board about what happens to Calipari and others who live off sending recruits to prepschools?

Seems the next loopholes are already happening. USC has been using online courses and adult ed to get in recruits who couldnt' qualify and now apparently the next loophole is coming fast. Seems there's a rule that says a kid can get more than one core class in his 5th year without losing a year of eligibility if he's diagnosed as having a learning disability like dyslexia. and surprise surprise seems several schools are already petitioning the NCAA over kids who they suddenly say have been diagnosed as learning disabled and who also just happen to have been among the first players caught in the new prepschool rules.

to my knowledge none of them are at Memphis so I guess Calipari hadn't figured that loophole out yet. At least one school has 2 kids who are applying for the waiver and the doctor who diagnosed them is of course a graduate of the school they're trying to get into. You can just see the potential for abuse of this loophole is rampant.