updated 4:38 p.m. ET March 18, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. - Top-seeded Tennessee leads 12 women’s teams in the NCAA tournament with perfect graduation rates.

A report released Tuesday found the Lady Vols graduated all their players during a four-year period. Other schools with perfect graduation rates from 1997-2001 were Bucknell, Marist, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Robert Morris, San Diego, Syracuse, Texas and Vanderbilt.

Only one men’s NCAA tournament team studied by Richard Lapchick, head of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, achieved perfect graduation success: 12th-seeded Western Kentucky.

“Women have regularly been the best news academically in college sport,” Lapchick said in the report.

Among the No. 1 seeds in the women’s tournament, Connecticut was next with a 92-percent graduation rate, followed by Maryland (71 percent) and North Carolina (64 percent).

The study looked at four freshman classes entering from 1997-2001, giving each six years to graduate. The players studied are no longer on campus, but the report intends to show academic trends.

Lapchick remained concerned about achievement gaps between black and white students, which is less severe among female than male players. Fifty-five of the 64 women’s teams graduated at least 70 percent or more of their white players, while black players had that success rate at 36 schools.

In Lapchick’s report on men’s graduation rates released Monday, 33 schools graduated at least 70 percent of white male basketball players; only 19 schools graduated that percentage of black players.

Only one of the women’s teams, Jackson State, graduated less than 40 percent of its players. Fourteen of the 65 teams in the men’s NCAA field were under that benchmark.

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