NCAA – Page 2 – North Platte Post Archive

NCAA Reports Big Jump in Home Runs with New Flat-Seam Ball

Posted on March 4, 2015

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The new flat-seam ball in college baseball is having the desired effect, with teams hitting 40 percent more home runs so far this season.

The NCAA announced Wednesday that teams are hitting a home run about every other game. Last year, teams homered about once every three games through the first three weeks of the season.

The actual average is 0.47 home runs per team compared with 0.33 at this point in 2014. Last season’s final average of 0.39 per team was a record low.

The NCAA approved use of the flat-seam ball in an attempt to punch up a game that has seen steep declines in offense since new bat standards took effect in 2011. Studies show the flat-seam ball travels 20 feet farther than the old raised-seam ball.

SEC’s Slive Leery of Making Freshman Athletes Ineligible

Posted on March 2, 2015

Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive says it would be best to wait until after the NCAA’s initial eligibility rules take effect in 2016 before considering whether to limit freshmen eligibility.

Slive said in a statement Monday if the goal is to improve graduation rates and grade-point averages, “we have to remember that each college student has his or her own academic challenges.”

He added: “To put a blanket over these student-athletes with a year on the bench doesn’t address those individual needs to incentivize academic progress. ”

Slive said many students do come to college prepared to compete both academically and athletically.

Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany has said he wants his conference to consider making freshmen ineligible in football and men’s basketball.

NCAA Picks Schaus, White for Next Year’s Selection Committee

Posted on February 12, 2015

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Athletic directors Jim Schaus and Kevin White will become the newest members of NCAA men’s basketball selection committee next season.

The announcement came Thursday. Each will begin serving in September.

Schaus has been at Ohio since April 2008. He spent the previous nine years as athletic director at Wichita State and has worked at Oregon, Cincinnati, UTEP and Northern Illinois. He also served on the men’s basketball rules committee and the Division I committee on academic performance.

White has been Duke’s AD for six years. Previously, he led Notre Dame’s athletic department from 2000-08 and worked at Arizona State, Tulane, Maine and Loras. White also has served on several NCAA committees.

Oklahoma AD Joseph Castiglione will chair the 10-member selection committee in 2015-16.

NCAA Women’s Basketball Committee Releases Top Seeds

Posted on February 11, 2015

Connecticut, South Carolina, Notre Dame and Tennessee would be the top seeds in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament if the season was over.

The NCAA women’s basketball committee decided for the first time to release its top four teams to this point in the season as well as the top 20 schools alphabetically. Wednesday’s list gives a snapshot of the top teams, but there is still a lot of basketball left to be played over the final month of the season.

For the first time since 2003, the women will have the top 16 teams host the opening two rounds of the NCAA tournament. Over 40 teams bid to host the first two rounds and it may not be as simple as just having the top four seeds in each region host.

Arizona State and Louisville both are on the NCAA’s list. Neither school submitted a bid to host because of scheduling conflicts.

Helmet Cams, Sideline Computers Coming to College Football

Posted on February 11, 2015

The NCAA football rules committee wants to experiment with helmet cameras, wireless communication between coaches and players on the field and the use of computers on the sideline.

The committee announced Wednesday after two days of meetings in Indianapolis that it was hoping to gather data about expanding the use of technology in college football with an eye toward implementing rules as soon as possible.

The NCAA says several conferences proposed experimenting with these rules and committee chairman and Air Force coach Troy Calhoun suggested the technology be used in some December bowl games during the 2015 season.

The committee also passed a proposal to adjust the ineligible downfield rule from 3 yards to 1 yard past the line of scrimmage and to allow for eight-man officiating crews.

Pace of Play Not Expected to be College Football Rules Issue

Posted on February 9, 2015

The NCAA coordinator of college football officials says he does not expect pace of play to be a major topic when the rules committee meets this week.

Rogers Redding said Monday the use of technology on the sideline will be a focus during committee meetings Tuesday and Wednesday.

Redding said the conversation about pace of play has been “muted.”

“There hasn’t been an awful lot of concern about that this year,” Redding said. “We’ll probably talk about it in the meeting, but I don’t anticipate any changes in the rules as a result of that.”

The NCAA football rules committee does not usual stir up much controversy, but last year it made headlines and talk-radio fodder for weeks with its proposal aimed at slowing down the game and limiting the number of plays for safety reasons.

Head of NCAA Enforcement: Academic Misconduct on Rise

Posted on January 28, 2015

The head of NCAA enforcement says academic misconduct has been on the rise in college athletics and his department is handling 20 open investigations.

Vice president of enforcement Jon Duncan said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press the cases involve both prospective and incoming athletes trying to become eligible for college competition, and enrolled athletes receiving impermissible assistance from university and athletic department personnel.

Eighteen of the cases involve Division I schools, though NCAA policies preclude Duncan from revealing which programs are under investigation.

North Carolina has been the focus of the NCAA’s most high-profile infractions case involving academics. Last year an independent investigator found that hundreds of Tar Heels athletes over nearly two decades were steered toward sham classes that gave out high grades for little work.

Big 5 Pass Cost of Attendance as NCAA Autonomy Begins

Posted on January 17, 2015

OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — The five most powerful and wealthiest conferences in college sports passed NCAA legislation that increases the value of an athletic scholarship by several thousand dollars to cover the federally determined actual cost of attendance.

Legislative autonomy for the Big Five — the Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast Conference, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference — was voted in last year and Saturday at the NCAA convention was its first chance to use it.

The group of 65 schools is now allowed to pass legislation on its own, without the support of the schools in the other 27 conferences that make up Division I.

“It is a special day,” Atlantic Coast Commissioner John Swofford said. “It’s historic, first of all, in that these 65 schools are in a room by themselves with the ability to pass legislation. That’s never happened before. I’ve never attended a convention where the primary focus of most of what was being discussed was about the student-athlete and the student-athlete’s experiences. ”

The cost of attendance was expected to pass and did so overwhelmingly by a 79-1 margin.

The move toward autonomy was spurred after a proposal to add a $2,000 stipend to the value of a scholarship to help cover the cost of attendance for athletes was shot down in 2011 by schools that were concerned they could not afford it and it would create a recruiting advantage for those that could.

Now those schools don’t have a say, though the legislation passed Saturday by the autonomous group will allow any school can opt in — or out.

Leaders from the other five FBS conferences have indicated they intend to pay full cost of attendance. Other Division I conferences have said they will consider cost of attendance for some sports but not necessarily all. The exact value of cost of attendance will vary from school to school. Currently, an athletic scholarship covers the cost of tuition, room and board, books and fees. The new scholarships will cover the cost of additional expenses, up to the full amount a traditional student might spend annually.

The Big Five also passed a concussion protocol proposal and a proposal that will guarantee four-year scholarships, instead of allowing them to be renewed from year to year as they are now. All the new legislation goes into effect Aug. 1.

For the first time in NCAA Division I history student-athletes were involved in the voting process, 15 in all out of a total of 80 delegates from the five conferences.

Emmert: Settlement with Penn State was to Free Fine Money

Posted on January 16, 2015

OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — NCAA President Mark Emmert says the association agreed to a settlement with Penn State to ensure that $60 million in fines paid by the school could finally be distributed to victims of sexual abuse.

Emmert added Friday that the settlement was not an acknowledgement the NCAA overreached by getting involved in the Jerry Sandusky child-molestation case.

The NCAA announced the settlement before a scheduled trial on the legality of the 2012 consent decree it will replace.

The settlement also restores 112 football victories that had been vacated as part of the penalties placed on Penn State for the Sandusky scandal. Late Penn State coach Joe Paterno will have 111 victories restored to his record, making him the winnigest coach in major college football history again.

Emmert: Autonomy lets Revenue, Nonrevenue Sports Co-Exist

Posted on January 15, 2015

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. (AP) — NCAA President Mark Emmert says allowing the five wealthiest conferences in Division I to make some of their own rules will allow revenue sports such as football and men’s basketball to co-exist with the many nonrevenue programs.

Emmert addressed the NCAA convention on Thursday, two days ahead of the first meeting of the so-called autonomy group, the 65 schools that make up the Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast Conference, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference.

The conferences will consider eight proposals on Saturday that they have been pushing for years, but could not pass because of opposition in the rest of Division I.

The most notable is allowing schools to increase the value of an athletic scholarship by several thousand dollars to cover full cost of attendance.