What if March Madness were May Madness? Graduation Rates and The Tournament

As you may know, I was very pumped at what Villanova does on their website. They are the only school I've come across who builds and elevates a section of their basketball website (NovaNation.com - link here, image below) to "Life After Basketball."

I loved this for so many reasons. It's a bit ironic, that elevating academics can become bold. But few schools do this, and the fact that it is elevated alongside the other "next level" is really exciting.

When you click in, you also get access to the image below - a word doc of athletics alums, and where they are now -- whether it's in the world of accounting, HR, or coaching. And it is positioned in a way that you feel any path is a great path, if it is true to you.

So that was in my mind as I came across this read (link here) diving into the graduation rates of NCAA basketball teams. It really got me thinking about the role academics could play in some families' college basketball decisions. When you look into this, it's pretty impressive that (in the time period studied) BYU, Duke, Marquette, Notre Dame, Villanova, and Wake Forest had graduated over 90% of their players on time. That's another good reason for Villanova's statement above! On the other hand, only 8% of Maryland basketball players had earned degrees on time. That's a red flag to me. Wow.

And then there's this piece of goodness (thanks Wendy for the tip!) Taking student body graduation rates and playing out this year's NCAA Tournament as if games were determined solely by how high the graduation rate was at each school. It proves brackets for anything are fun, and it also proves that March Madness would be nowhere near as interesting to watch if that's how things went down! Your Final Four: Kansas, Duke, BYU, and Texas. Full read here, the bracket is below (hope it shows up ok!)

OK, can't wait for day two of Madness!!! Here's to hoping your bracket is better than mine...