Pretty significant when the NCAA web singles out a program for an example of the way academic progress can be achieved.
The University of Louisville basketball team gets high praise in a post penned by NCAA staff writer Joe Menzer:
The men’s basketball team at Louisville produced a 3.47 combined grade-point average for the 2013 fall semester, the highest ever for the Cardinals and the highest of the school’s nine men’s sports programs. And this came on the heels of a 3.295 cumulative GPA for the team for the entire 2012-13 school year.
Louisville also ranks among the top-10 percent in Division I basketball in the Academic Progress Rate (APR), which measures academic eligibility, retention and graduation rates for student-athletes.
Academic advisor Anthony Wright makes it his job to align each student-athlete with a mentor who undergoes a rigorous screening process before getting the job. Those mentors then work with the student-athletes, oftentimes with tutors in individual subjects, as well, during daily two-hour study halls to make certain no student-athlete falls behind in academics.