But I think the point is that even though people know this about their basketball program, it hasn't hurt the overall academic reputation of the school. Now they have an excellent reputation and good basketball. Whether the whole system chews up these kids and spits them out is a different debate...Yeah people who follow college basketball know that Duke signficantly lowers their academic standards for the basketball team. It eroded that way because of Mike Krzyzewski and the discrepancy is the worst among all Division 1 programs. The truth is the truth.
I look at college sports as competition between students. Is that idealistic? Maybe. But as John Mellencamp once sang - "You gotta stand for something or you're gonna fall for anything."
But I am a big proponent of the idea that a top flight university should attempt to recruit the best people in the world at what they do and then help them benefit from the university's environment.