Online news outlet TheDailyBeast.com recently ranked the 68 teams in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in terms of how the student-athletes fared academically, and Belmont University landed at third on the list behind only Princeton and Brigham Young. Rounding out the top five were Notre Dame and Villanova. Rankings were calculated based on each team’s graduation success rate (GSR), Academic Progress Rate (APR) for both the most recent year available as well as the multi-year, four-year average score and the head coach’s career APR. All four metrics, calculated and provided by the NCAA, were weighted equally. Click here to see the story and complete list.
Belmont was also one of only seven schools nationwide to be praised by CBSMoneyWatch.com for having perfect graduation rates for men’s basketball student athletes. Click here for more on that story.
Meanwhile, InsideHigherEd.com released today its own picks for the Tournament Bracket based on classroom outcomes. Winners of each game in their bracket were determined using only the NCAA’s multi-year Academic Progress Rate, a nationally comparable score that gives points to teams whose players stay in good academic standing and remain enrolled from semester to semester. In this bracket Belmont falls in the Regional Semifinals to eventual tournament champion Butler. In 2008, the site selected Belmont University to make it all the way to the Championship Game. Click here to read more on this story.
Belmont Men’s Basketball will face Wisconsin in the second round of the 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this Thurs., March 17 in Tucson, Ariz., as part of the Southeast Regional bracket. Tip-off time is 6:27 p.m. Central, and the game will be carried live on TruTV.
