What's the goal?

Latest score raises issue about academic priorities

On Maryland men's basketball

The alarmist can only wag his finger.

The Maryland men's basketball team has the worst academic score of any Atlantic Coast Conference school. It's also the worst of any of Maryland's 27 sports teams.

The realist can only shake his head.

In all, men's basketball teams from 124 Division I schools posted insufficient grades in the NCAA's latest report card - its annual Academic Progress Rate report.

The basketball fan can only shrug his shoulders.

What does it all mean? Either basketball players are dumb as rocks for taking a free education for granted, college coaches are sleazeballs for pretending they care, or everyone else is naive for thinking grades still matter.

Or maybe all three.

Let's not pretend there's anything simple about these APR scores or the nature of men's basketball. It's complex, as we'll get into in a bit, and brushing over the topic with a wide brush is dangerous.

Maryland coach Gary Williams likes to defend his program by explaining that basketball players have a short window to earn money playing the sport they love, so it's understandable they might leave school early. And that's fair. And that makes sense.

And that's exactly why we have a big problem here.

Williams gets no free pass on the matter. The problems he faces graduating players are not unique to Maryland. He doesn't have exceptional athletes who leave after three years for NBA stardom. Yet he graduates fewer players than any other ACC school.

The APR, regarded as a real-time snapshot of academic progress, has established a cutoff score of 925, a number intended to equate to a 60 percent graduation rate. Only two ACC schools are below that figure - Maryland (906) and Clemson (920). It's shameful. The fact that Williams (and other coaches) would rather focus on the landscape speaks to the degeneration of men's basketball in the college environment.

If you can peacefully go to sleep at night with your kids leaving school early, then you've either forgotten the greater mission (cough, cough - higher education - cough) or you simply don't care. You might as well coach Amateur Athletic Union basketball or an NBA Development League team.

Overall Maryland posted many successes. Twenty-one of the 27 sports teams were above the public school average, and 26 of the 27 finished above the cut score. "Our goal would be all 27," athletics director Debbie Yow says. (Maryland officials point out that scores will improve soon. Last year's team graduated four of six seniors; this year's will graduate all three; and next year the Terps will surely graduate Dave Neal, who will be the lone senior.)