Two items from today's Journal/Sentinel

[Sir Lawrence]

1.  MU meets NCAA graduation policy:

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=670801

Seeing degrees of success
Wisconsin schools meet NCAA graduation criteria
By DON WALKER
dwalker@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Oct. 3, 2007

Every sport at each of the four Division I athletic programs in the state of Wisconsin had a Graduation Success Rate of at least 60%, according to NCAA data released Wednesday.

NCAA President Myles Brand said each sport at each school should have a Graduation Success Rate of 60%.

"We want to achieve that benchmark on a continuing basis," Brand told reporters in a conference call.

The GSR is an NCAA created metric used to assess the long-term progress of athletes' academic success. The GSR differs from federal graduation rates in that it counts transfers into and out of a college or university.

Nationwide, the latest GSR figures show that 77% of athletes who began college from 1997-2000 graduated within six years. That four-graduation rate is unchanged from last year's data and up from 76% two years ago.

But the GSR increased in many sports, including men's basketball, football and baseball, the data show. The increase was 8% in men's basketball, Brand said.

"We are moving toward an 80% graduation rate over six years," Brand said.
STATE RATES

A breakdown of graduation percentages for athletes in some men's and women's sports at Marquette, Wisconsin, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Green Bay:
Sport              MU       UW      UWM      UWGB
Basketball (M)    89     67     65        70
Basketball (W)    91     79    100       100
Soccer (M)    93     85     74         93
Soccer (W)   100    84    90        94
Football            61      
Hockey (M)         68      
Hockey (W)         95      

2.  Wilson and Lacy mention:

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=670798

High praise for pair: Racine Horlick junior Jamil Wilson and Bay View junior Johnny Lacy are ranked among the top 20 junior boys basketball players in the country, according to HoopScooplonline.com. Wilson is ranked 10th and Lacy is 19th.

[ecompt]

so we beat Madison in all the categories. Congrats to all.

[jmayer1]

I think it is imperative Marquette can land at least one of these two local players.  MU obviously had luck with in-state stars in Diener and Novak, so hopefully that will help sway these kids.