Golden Nugz 05.04.09

So by now you've all heard about the Gophers losing 3 scholarships due to their low multiyear ARP score.  The problem seems to stem from a number of factors. 

• Mason's habit of finishing last in the Big Ten when it comes to graduation rates. 
  
• Players transferring because of the coaching change.
• Brewster's initial recruiting class that has seen a large chunk of the signees not make it two years. 
  
• The dismissal of five players due to the alleged 2007 sexual assault case.

The team knew this was coming and the loss of the three scholarships was factored into the 2009 class signed in February.  The loss of the scholarships doesn't concern me as much as the fact that they let this happen.  This isn't about one year and this can't be blamed on a coaching change.  We are the only Big Ten school to lose scholarships, we have had terrible grad rates for years and it was allowed to go on until it came to this.  And it's not like Brewster's first class thrown together in a few weeks was the only problem, the 2008 class had it's share of non-qualifiers as well.

On the bright side things are looking up.  Maturi was quick to point out that we led the conference on the Academic All-Big Ten team this last fall and graduaion was 100%. 

"The good news is that the football program is back on solid academic footing," Maturi said. "It had 29 Academic All-Big Ten performers last fall, which was the most in the conference last year, graduated all 12 of its seniors and recorded a 957 APR for the fall semester, which is one of the program's best single-semester scores since the NCAA instituted the APR system."

That is encouraging but this needs to be more than a high score every few years to keep the multiyear average above 925.  I am not naive and understand why they are on campus and really why we follow them with varying levels of passion.  But they can't be let off the hook and there needs to be some effort made to educate these kids.

• Gopher baseball has won seven straight Big Ten games.  This weekend's sweep over Iowa was impressive, especially the 26-9 win on Saturday.  After the weekend the Gophers are siting just a 1/2 game behind Illinois for the conference lead.  NDSU awaits for the mid week game then the team hads to Ann Arbor for a big weekend with Michigan.
  
• Ryan over at Gopher Illustrated compiled a list of the top 40 graduating high school seniors in the state.  Ryan watches a lot of hoops and I wouldn't know enough to argue with him.  Clearly #1 is White and #2 is Williams, but after that there about another 16 kids heading to D1 schools.