BATON ROUGE — LSU athletics director Skip Bertman has issued the following statement to expound on comments he made to the Associated Press on March 15 regarding LSU basketball graduation rates as reported by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida on teams participating in the NCAA Tournament.
“My remarks were intended to be two-fold. First, I feel the UCF study is irrelevant because it takes a snapshot of a time that does not reflect the current state of the programs participating in the NCAA Tournament. I applaud the accomplishments John Brady has made and is making in the classroom and the many players he has graduated. The UCF study does not reflect his success.
“Second, the very basis of this study, regardless of the time period reported, is erroneous for a number of reasons. The UCF study itself admits that the current method for calculating graduation rates is unfair.
“The current method does not take into account players who transfer in good standing and receive a degree at another school, nor does it count junior college students who transfer to a four-year college and graduate. Neither does it take into account players who leave school in good academic standing to enter professional sports, nor student-athletes who leave in good academic standing for health or family reasons.
“For instance, a very large number of men’s basketball players during the Dale Brown era of LSU Basketball went on to earn their degrees, but they are not recognized by the conventional method of calculating graduation rates. An example is Shaquille O’Neal who does not count among those players who graduated, but did receive his degree outside the six-year window that would give LSU credit for his graduation.
“It is unfortunate that this unfair method of calculating academic success and failure has resulted in negative and misleading remarks about LSU by several noted national commentators such as Gwen Ifill on PBS’ “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” and Mark Shields on CNN’s “The Capital Gang” who have simply picked up the UCF study without considering the fallacies within its report.
“Fortunately, the NCAA is currently undertaking new initiatives to more accurately recognize the academic progress and graduation of its student-athletes. I believe this new effort will reflect positively on LSU’s commitment to the academic welfare of our young people.”