With the world of recruiting in college basketball spinning out of control, the brass at the NCAA finally decided it was time to close the loophole of coaches recruiting kids without regulation in the seventh and eighth grade.

The old rule defined a “prospect” as a ninth-grader or older, but this allowed coaching staffs to start developing relationships via camps and clinics with younger prospects. The camps and clinics were not regulated by the NCAA.

This will no longer be the case:

The organization voted Thursday to change the definition of a prospect from ninth grade to seventh grade – for men’s basketball only – to nip a trend in which some college coaches were working at private, elite camps and clinics for seventh- and eighth-graders. The NCAA couldn’t regulate those camps because those youngsters fell below the current cutoff.

“It’s a little scary only because – we talked about this – where does it stop?” said Joe D’Antonio, chairman of the 31-member Division I Legislative Council, which approved the change during a two-day meeting at the NCAA Convention. “The fact that we’ve got to this point is really just a sign of the times.”

Schools had expressed concern that the younger-age elite camps were giving participating coaches a recruiting advantage, pressuring other coaches to start their own camps.

(more…)

The NCAA released academic progress rate (APR) for all of its Division I schools today and IU ranked No. 268 out of 337 in men’s basketball. The report scores each institution through the 2006-2007 school year. The minimum score a school can achieve without losing scholarships in a particular sport is 925. IU’s score was 899. Since this only covers data through 2006-2007, IU could see a significant drop in next year’s score based on the rumored academic troubles in the program as well as the mass defections in recent weeks.

Update: After a further examination of this report (and a Hat Tip is due to Chris Korman for this revelation of footnote 3 on Pg. 1), IU has avoided losing another scholarship because “the team demonstrated academic improvement and had a favorable comparison based on other academic or institutional factors.”

Here’s a link to the complete report:

• Indiana University NCAA academic progress rate