Duncan: Ban NCAA teams with low grades

WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- The U.S. secretary of education suggested basketball teams be barred from NCAA tournaments if they are not on track to graduate at least half of their players.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the NCAA should apply its Academic Progress Rate to tournament teams and issue bans to any teams scoring lower than 925, which amounts to a 50 percent graduation rate, USA Today reported Thursday.

"The math on this is not complicated," Duncan said. "If you can't graduate one in two of your student-athletes, I just question the institutional commitment to academics. And I think if the NCAA were to draw a line in the sand, you'd see this behavior change very rapidly."

USA Today said three women's teams and 10 men's teams, including Syracuse University and Purdue University, would be disqualified from tournaments if such rules were in place.