An NCAA working group charged with improving academic performance in men’s basketball is honing in on the academic preparedness of incoming players as an area it can influence.

While final recommendations are six months away, the NCAA Basketball Academic Enhancement Group, which met April 25 in Indianapolis, is gravitating toward a summer-school model and more offseason access for coaches to players in an academic setting as among best chances to change a culture that ranks basketball pursuits above education.

The summer environment isn’t the only change being considered – the working group is reviewing a number of factors unique to basketball that may impair academic success, including the timing of the playing and practice season, a high transfer rate, the revolving door of head coaches and the culture of youth basketball – but members believe a restructured summer can both gain a consensus and have an impact.

In the words of working group member and San Diego State President Steve Weber: “We need to get these young men off to the right start in as positive of an environment as possible.”

The NCAA’s recently announced partnership with the NBA on a youth-basketball initiative will help in that regard, but so might a working group proposal requiring institutions to offer financial aid for the summer term and in turn requiring the student-athlete to pass six credit hours for fall-term eligibility.

The new model also affords more access from coach to student-athlete during the summer – access that under current rules is not permitted.

The original proposal from one of the working group’s five subcommittees substituted that summer access for the current access given to coaches in the spring – the idea being for student-athletes to focus on academics during that time – but coaches on the working group cited the time between the Final Four and the summer term as critical for many basketball players – especially those on the verge of transferring. Coaches argued that with their influence, the transfer rate might wane. “Kids listen to other people when they don’t have access to the coach,” one warned.

In other words, coaches liked the summer model but they didn’t want to give up access at other times of the year. The original proposal was structured to shift the access without increasing it through the course of the year.

Opponents to increased access worry that coaches are in it only for the skill development, while supporters counter that the coach also has the most influence on the athlete’s academic path. Working group members reasoned that if coaches and student-athletes are together for the right reasons, it might strengthen the partnership between the academic community and the coaches.

NCAA President Myles Brand agreed with that more trusting approach. “Whatever changes this group recommends will in large part be up to the coaches to carry out – they need to be trusted to do that, and taking away their access is not the right approach. Let’s make sure the coaches have the ability to work directly with the players,” he said.

With that, the subcommittee will reconsider the summer model without the substitution clause. Members also will consider extending the summer-school requirement (originally proposed for a player’s first two years) to all summers during the player’s tenure. Working group members realize that some schools will oppose the costs, but they said it simply was the price of competing in Division I.

Other recommendations

The working group, which was established last summer and has conducted three in-person meetings since, will conduct one more August 8 before formulating its final report to the Board of Directors in October. While the summer-school proposal appears to be the one with the most momentum right now, it is by no means the only measure the panel is considering.

Other areas under review include a possible “year of academic readiness” that would address academic needs for at-risk players without starting either their eligibility or progress-toward-degree clocks. Among the many concerns about the proposal, though, is whether the program should be available for nonqualifiers.

Also in the mix is an enhanced relationship with the two-year college community, which some people see as a potential asset in the at-risk player’s academic path. Current data show that two-year college transfers are among the least successful academically, but some people believe that could be rectified if the first year of a student’s attendance at the two-year school was devoted to remedial courses (again without starting the eligibility or academic clock).

“Anything we can do to empower the junior colleges to better prepare kids for the four-year college is a wise investment for us to make,” one working group member said. Another said: “We all need to realize that there will be two-year college kids in our system. So the question is who is better prepared to manage the at-risk athletes in their first year?”

Transfers in general also are a working group concern, particularly as they apply to the retention point in the Academic Progress Rate. The Board of Directors recently adopted legislation that forgives the retention point for student-athletes who transfer with at least a 2.6 grade-point average, but some working group members think the GPA cut-off should be lowered.

While that idea didn’t gain a consensus, the working group was advised that the Division I Committee on Academic Performance has established an appeal process for student-athletes with GPAs of at least 2.0 to 2.6.

A number of other ideas are in play as well, including one from the playing and practice season subcommittee that permit schools to use a “staggered schedule” for the start of team practice (starting October 1) that allow freshmen more time to acclimate to college life and coaches more time to develop relationships with players.

Other proposals from that subcommittee adjust the maximum number of contests from 29 to 28 and restrict the number of conference road games that can be played in week (for example, if a team plays two road games in a week, one has to be on a Saturday or Sunday).

Also on the table are concepts from the “0-for-2” subcommittee regarding where NBA tryouts are held and flexibility in the APR in cases when coaches leave the program. That group also is addressing what to do about players who exhaust their eligibility and leave the school in poor academic standing.

Those and all other proposals under consideration will be vetted in conference meetings this spring and summer before being deliberated once again by the working group in August.