clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Kentucky Basketball: Men's Basketball Posts High GPA, APR Soars

Good news from the academic side of Kentucky's basketball program, but we are used to that at Kentucky.

Give yourselves a hand!
Give yourselves a hand!
Jamie Squire

John Calipari has announced on his website that Kentucky men's basketball scored a 3+ -pointer (3.11 to be exact) for the spring semester (3.05) for scholarship players only. This is not "official" since it doesn't come from UK, but I doubt Calipari gets it wrong. Consider this quote from the man himself:

"I couldn’t be more proud of these young men," John Calipari said. "Ten out of the 16 had a B average or better. Over the last five years, this basketball program has won as many games as anyone in college basketball, won a national championship and been to more Final Fours than anyone else, and none of that has been done at the expense of academics."

Hello? Bob Knight, are you still there? Are you listening? Spring semester, Bob. You know, the one where players don't really go to class?

That's not all the good academic news. There's much more:

The NCAA released its annual Academic Progress Rate report on Wednesday, and Kentucky once again met and exceeded the NCAA minimum needed to maintain postseason eligibility. UK posted a four-year composite score of 989, well above the 930 four-year average needed to compete in the 2014-15 championships.

Yeah, that's very not bad, especially considering that many of the players who have come to Kentucky could have skipped out on their academic responsibilities. In fact, Kentucky has had only one player — Daniel Orton — shirk his duty to the school and to his coach when it comes to academics since Calipari came to Kentucky.

And there is even more:

"Not only have we graduated 10 players, we’ve had three guys (Polson, Jon Hood and Julius Mays) work towards advanced or second degrees and we’ve had three players (Marquis Estill, Wayne Turner and Jodie Meeks) come back to finish their degrees," Calipari said. We’ve proven that you can succeed both on the court and in the classroom."

I think that's enough, don't you? Congratulations to the team, former players, and to Coach Cal. I love to see this, and I know you do, too. I also know that others hate to see this, because it shoots down one of their pet theories about Kentucky and Calipari.  Then again, making the haters gnash their teeth is what we live for.