Duke: Not a Bastion of Cost-Effectiveness

Fanblogs directed me to this Chronicle of Education report - read it quick before you have to pay for it - on the recruitment budgets of various universities in 2006-07. UNC doesn't make the Top 20 on the most profligate list despite that being Butch Davis' overachieving first recruiting class and Roy Williams' spending the year laying the groundwork for the upcoming seasons. I'm perfectly happy with that; the Heels bring in good athletes without breaking the athletic department budget. That's not the interesting thing though.

The surprising name on the list is our brethren down 15-501. Duke had the ninth highest spending in the country, putting down $1,236,800 dollars to bring students in. (The lowest school listed, Kentucky, spent 1,056,100 so UNC is under that.) The question is, what was that spent on? The eight schools above them are all football fanatics - 5 SEC schools, Notre Dame, Nebraska and KSU - but Duke's football team, well, shouldn't cost very much to recruit. For that matter, the '07-'08 Blue Devils athletic accomplishments consist of... a national champion women's golf team. (The total womens recruiting budget is $282,600, the fourth smallest percentage amongst BCS schools.)

So what did the other 0.95 million get the Blue Devils? Taylor King, Kyle Singler, and Nolan Smith?

(Below the cut, the rest of the Top 20, before the Chronicle absconds with it.)