UPDATE on RESPONSES TO QUERIES (31 March 2002)

Richard Sundt, Art History

Analysis of the Grade Point Average and basketball schedule for the 2000-01 academic year reveals that academic performance increased when play during dead and finals week decreased.

Below I provide the data which supports more concretely the statements I made in the Responses to Queries of 31 March 2002. In that memo (item no. 4, section "Grade Point Average During Competition," Analysis) I noted that my discussion was "preliminary awaiting additional scheduling data." I now have the correct basketball schedules for 2000-01 that I lacked in March when I was working on item no. 4. Briefly, while the season dates were not entirely correct, the conclusions were; the new data makes these conclusions clearer and inescapable.

Discussion and Analysis:

Both men and women play most of their games in Winter term. One is thus surprised to learn that their Winter GPA is higher than their overall GPA. This would appear to work against my arguments, but that is not the case--quite the opposite in fact. The following statistics are for 2000-01. There was as yet no Pac-10 post season play this academic year. 

MEN: overall GPA was 2.39, but for Winter 2001 it rose considerably, to 2.87.

Fall:
-- one game during dead week
-- NO game during finals week

Winter:
-- NO game during dead week
-- NO game during finals week

The Winter term GPA was higher perhaps because basketball players had NO games interfering with dead and finals week during this quarter, which was not the case in the Fall when there was a game in dead week.

The lack of Pac-10 post-season tournament (instituted in 2002), and the fact that the team did not make it into the NCAA tournament kept the Winter academic schedule free, and this made it possible for student-athletes to perform better than in the Fall.

(For men, and women discussed below: Given the lower overall GPA and the higher Winter GPA, the assumption is that the GPA has to be lower either for the Fall, the Spring or both.) 

WOMEN: overall GPA was 3.03, but for Winter 2001 it rose modestly, to 3.07.

Fall:
-- one game during dead week
-- one game during finals week

Winter:
-- one game during dead week
-- NO game during finals week

The women posted less of an increase in their GPA Winter term, but an increase nevertheless. This coincides with a finals week without play. Perhaps the smallness of the increase can be explained by the fact that, unlike the men, both quarters had some play during dead and/or finals week. Men, on the other hand, had the Winter dead and finals week free from games, and this was distinctly to their advantage grade-point wise.