Tuesday, March 23, 2010

HERE COMES TREBLE: This week, in the third round of the NCAA Tournament (go Huskies!), current favorite Kentucky plays Cinderella darling Cornell, in a battle of basketball tradition and expectations versus Ivy League stereotypes of varying accuracy. Despite the lame jokes you will hear from an oafish minority of sportswriters over the next several days, Ivy League basketball teams don't conduct practice in Latin and don't discuss calculus on the team bus. Most of the differences between Ivy League athletes (and athletic programs) and their powerhouse counterparts are of degree, not kind.

Still, the story at the ESPN basketball blog about Mike Coury, who went from starter at Kentucky to reserve at Cornell, is interesting. It's too simplistic, I think, to suggest that Coury's future depends upon the name on his sheepskin. It strikes me that being an ex-basketball player from Kentucky might open up more doors than being a Cornell graduate (I wouldn't know, being neither). And while Cornell might have a better undergraduate business program than does Kentucky, I tend to believe that the quality of one's program is less important than the quality of the student making use of it. But going from a big-time athletic program where many of one's teammates are not expected to graduate (or even to go to class) to a school where the basketball team exerts no influence over academic expectations -- that may not be such a bad move for a guy who actually wants to crack the books and who has no expectation of playing in the NBA.

4 comments:

  1. NB that Coury was a walk-on at Kentucky; he was able to start during a transition year, but could reasonably expect to be riding the bench the next two years. 

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  2. gretchen8:21 AM

    Just in case you all haven't seen this yet, I really enjoyed this article about a nun at Xavier who is the academic adviser for their athletes, and has gotten every basketball-playing senior to graduate. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/sports/ncaabasketball/16nun.html

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  3. Anonymous1:41 PM

    Let's not assume that UK is not a good school or has a crappy business school because it has a great basketball team -- and, like stated, definitely any degree you get is only as good as the student who gets it.  As a UK grad who lived very close to the basketball players and interacted with them on a regular basis, I have to say that UK did a really good job balancing athletics and academics.  For a big school, their handling of undergraduate students was top notch -- while a lot of kids I graduated HS with were lost in "better" schools, I had more help than I needed to get through a BS degree in four years.  Honestly, you can argue that a UK degree in the south holds just as much weight as a big ten degree does.

    Congrats to Coury on transferring to the best school for him.

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  4. isaac_spaceman2:01 AM

    Sigh.  I didn't say UK is not a good school or that it has a crappy business school.  I do not assume either of those things.  I do not in any way assume an inverse correlation between a school's athletic program and its academic quality.  All I said was that Cornell may have a better business school than UK but that that wouldn't be important, my point not being that it does, but that it wouldn't really matter if it did.  I don't know whether it does or doesn't -- that's why I said "may."  There is literally nothing in the post I wrote that can fairly be read to suggest that I think UK has a crappy business school, and I didn't even write (or intend to write) that UK's business school is one iota worse than Cornell's.  If you read "UK=crappy" anywhere in that post, you're the one who put it there, not me.  As a general rule, if you think I've insulted you or something dear to your heart -- it could happen -- read my post again and see if you're imagining things before you get prickly about it. 

    Incidentally, UK may do a pretty good job overall balancing athletics and academics, but you can't seriously suggest that its priorities for its athletes are the same as Cornell's.  Cornell has eight seniors, all of whom will graduate this year.  Kentucky's two best players are freshmen who have no interest in getting their degrees and never had any intention of seeing their sophomore years.  By all accounts, they have been diligent students, but it would be idiotic to suggest that they are at Kentucky for any reason other than to launch their NBA careers, or that class, whether it be mild irritant or pleasant diversion, is anything more than a minor part of that plan.  The academic expectation for a Cornell basketball player is the same as for any other Cornell student.  The academic expectation for an elite Kentucky player like Wall or Cousins is not the same as it was for you. 

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