If you didn’t already catch it, the NCAA was busy again today.  After taking away our text messages and putting the whomp down on academic rogues in the last week, it decided that beginning in the 2008-09 season, college basketball will move back its three-point line by a foot to 20 feet, 9 inches.  This remains three feet shy of the NBA range at the top of the key, but inexplicably, it is three inches longer than the international distance.  In keeping with NCAA decisionmaking, this extra three inches makes almost no sense, considering that a given court could have as many as four different three-point lines on it – women’s NCAA (staying at 19’9), international (20’6), men’s NCAA (20’9) and NBA (23’9).

Notwithstanding the playing surface chaos we anticipate at the likes of UC-Santa Barbara and other schools that use their home floors for volleyball in addition to men’s and women’s basketball (so… many… lines…), some coaches have chafed at the change because it did not also address the width of the lane.  Their complaint is that if you are trying to open up the court and reduce physical play by extending the three-point distance, you need to also expand the width of the lane to compensate for the post men’s strength inside.  In our worldview, though, anything that provides for less bumping and grinding in the paint is without question a good thing.  See: Suns, Phoenix, for a template on this style.     

Although we question the confounding extra three inches, we actually believe this is a good rule change for player development purposes as well – and overdue, at that.  When the 12 year olds at your local rec center (or this kid!) can consistently hit the current three-point shot, it’s probably a little too easy for college athletes.  Plus, every additional inch will provide a disincentive for guys who shouldn’t have been shooting threes in the first place – do you hear us Jacque Vaughn/Wayne Turner/TJ Ford? 

If those cries of agony you heard today coming from AD offices across the land, originating at the fair universities at Cincinnati, Fresno State and Iowa State (among others) had you bewildered, wonder no more.  Today the NCAA released its Myles Brand-inspired bugaboo, the Academic Progress Rate (APR), to hordes of facepainted denizens ready to storm the castle at these bastions of academe and throw the louts (coaches) out.  Now that academic performance, er, progress, is tied to reductions in scholarships, practice & game time, and ultimately postseason eligibility, a coach cannot (should not?) simply round up the three nearest Lloyd Daniels and Skip to my Lous and call it a class, can he?

Myles Brand is coming after your school!

Well, he can if he moves on to another school before the APR kicks in.  None of the head coaches at these three schools for the years considered by the APR (2003-2006) – Bob Huggins (Cincinnati); Ray Lopes (Fresno St.); Wayne Morgan (Iowa St.) – are still around at their respective universities, having left academic quagmires in their wake that the new coaches and administrators must now sort out.  Much like hepatitis A after a bender to Laos, it’s the gift that keeps on giving!   

We don’t mean to pick on these coaches, as 44% of their peer institutions in Division 1 basketball also had three-year APR averages under the NCAA minimum requirement of 925 (out of 1000), and the national average was only 927.   Fresno St. (787), Cincinnati (838) and Iowa St. (852) just happen to be the three worst “name” schools.  If these and other schools don’t get their acts together, they could face what the NCAA calls “historical penalties,” which assesses major restrictions on a team and a program if their academic progress is not at an acceptable level.  Cincinnati (1) and Iowa St. (2) are already losing scholarships this year for its transgressions under their former coaches who got away scot-free, which once again shows the hyprocisy of the NCAA (another topic for another time).  It’s a good thing this measure didn’t exist during the Tarkanian days – does the APR score go as low as zero?     

• Missouri Restaurant Association rejoices: Majerus to become top Billiken. 
• RIP Mt. Zion Academy and other charlatan schools: NCAA 86es diploma mills. 
• Florida and Kentucky fans are all atwitter…  the Patterson and Lucas watch continues. 
• Andy Katz‘s and Luke Winn‘s too-early top 25 – we’ll wait until after we see who is coming back for 07-08 first.