Teams With Postseason Ineligibility for 2012-13 Season
Men’s Basketball
California State University, Bakersfield*
Jacksonville State University
Mississippi Valley State University
Texas A&M Corpus Christi
Towson University
University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff
University of California, Riverside
University of Connecticut
University of North Carolina, Wilmington
University of Toledo
*Data still under review
Football
Hampton University
North Carolina A&T State University
Texas Southern University
Men’s Soccer
Central Connecticut State University
Men’s Wrestling
University of Northern Colorado
Source: NCAA
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June 11, 2013
The NCAA today released its annual Academic Progress Rates report for Division I men’s and women’s programs, and heralded sizable improvements by historically black colleges to raise graduation and retention rates for its student athletes.
But several HBCUs have accepted or are challenging NCAA sanctions, including reduced practice time and ineligibility for postseason competition.
The hardest hit among the HBCUs programs is Alabama State University, as the Hornets are appealing postseason bans for its football, baseball, m.... In a statement, Alabama State President William Harris said that the university is committed to the academic performance of its student athletes.
“Although we have seen improvements in all areas, we are committed to assuring that athletic programs meet or exceed the established standards. We take the development of our student-athletes very seriously and are committed to addressing every matter that is a barrier to the success of our athletic program. As such, we have made both staff and coaching changes to help to improve the academic preparedness and performance our student athletes. We have thoroughly reviewed the NCAA’s report and have submitted waivers for review of the sanctions. We are optimistic for favorable outcomes for the upcoming seasons.”
Additional postseason ban decisions were handed out for the following MEAC and SWAC programs:
MEAC
Savannah State Football
Norfolk State Indoor, Outdoor Men’s Track and Field
Florida A&M Women’s Volleyball
SWAC
Grambling State Men’s Basketball
Southern Indoor, Outdoor Men’s Track and Field
UAPB Men’s Basketball
Mississippi Valley State Men’s Basketball, Football, Baseball
June 11, 2013
The NCAA continues to see positive overall trends in its Academic Progress Rate, but historically black colleges and universities continue to lag behind the rest of Division I, according to data released Tuesday by the NCAA.
In fact, barring the NCAA granting a waiver request, four of the 10 men's basketball teams in the Southwestern Athletic Conference — made up entirely of HBCUs — will be ineligible for the NCAA tournament in 2013-14 because of academic performance.
Of the Division I teams that scored below 900 in the APR, the benchmark to be eligible for postseason play, 78% were from HBCUs. The APR is calculated on a four-year average, but a postseason ban can be avoided if the most recent two-year average is above 930.
The NCAA uses the APR to measure eligibility and retention of student-athletes, which it considers a predictor of graduation rates. A score of 925 is considered equivalent to a 50% graduation rate, and achieving anything below that number is subject to penalties.
"Obviously the performance in those teams that haven't hit the mark are something that causes everyone concern," NCAA president Mark Emmert said. "I know the presidents at those universities, most of whom I've spoken with, are deeply concerned. We're working hard with them to help improve that performance by providing support for designing programs to improve academic tutoring and support programs. We also created, with the direct support and enthusiastic advice of the (NCAA Board of Directors), a program to provide grants and financial support to those institutions so they can make investments in their academic support programs."
Though the number of teams receiving APR penalties has decreased dramatically since 2006-07, when more than 100 fell into that category, the number of teams ineligible for the postseason has slightly increased. In 2011, the penalty structure was revamped to provide three different levels, including loss of practice time, loss of scholarships and even an NCAA-mandated reduction in number of games played.
This year, five teams received the most severe, or Level Three, penalties: the men's basketball squads at Mississippi Valley State, Louisiana-Monroe, New Orleans and Grambling State, as well as the women's volleyball team at Chicago State.
The only major conference team in any sport to receive a postseason ban for 2013-14 is the men's basketball team at Florida International, which is joining Conference USA. Other men's basketball teams ineligible for the 2013-14 NCAA tournament include Grambling State, New Orleans, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Alabama State and Mississippi Valley State. The latter three have waiver requests to reduce their penalty with a data review pending.
In addition to men's basketball, three other programs at Alabama State will miss the postseason in 2013-14: volleyball, football and baseball.
"We have and will continuously review and implement measures to provide essential academic resources for our student-athletes," interim President William H. Harris said in a written statement. "We have made both staff and coaching changes to help to improve the academic preparedness and performance our student athletes. We have thoroughly reviewed the NCAA's report and have submitted waivers for review of the sanctions. We are optimistic for favorable outcomes for the upcoming seasons."
Of the 51 squads below 900 in the APR, the NCAA says just 18 will be ineligible for postseason competition this year because of waivers and other mitigating factors.
UConn was ineligible for the men's basketball tournament in 2012-13 because of a series of poor APR scores under former head coach Jim Calhoun. Though the school is still below 900 in the four-year average, it will be eligible for the 2013-14 tournament because its two-year average is above 930.
The benchmark for postseason participation is rising from 900 to 930 by 2014-15, which will put a number of major programs in jeopardy if they do not improve their scores in the next few years. Among them are the football programs at Tennessee (924), Louisville (924) and Oklahoma State (926) and the men's basketball programs at Providence (915), Texas A&M (911), Houston (908) and Oregon (918).
"If you can't graduate half your student-athletes you shouldn't be worried about playing in championships or tournaments," Emmert said. "That message seems to be being received loud and clear."
The overall national APR average increased by two points in men's basketball to 952 and stayed the same in football at 949. For just the 120 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the APR average was 954. Both sports are still well below the average of 974 for all sports. Women's basketball came close to the overall average at 972.
Measuring the single-year APR for 2011-12 against 2007-08, which just dropped off the four-year average, men's basketball increased by 12 points and football improved its score by six points.
Another key finding in the study is that transfers comprise 12.1%t of the student-athlete population in men's basketball, not including 14.9%t who transferred from junior college. That number is much lower in FBS football, where just 3.2% of the four-year students are transfers. Men's basketball is the only major sport where the proportion of four-year transfers has risen significantly since the APR was established.
The NCAA notes that 5,643 former athletes in the four marquee sports (men's and women's basketball, football and baseball) have come back to college after their eligibility to earn degrees over the past nine years, which earns bonus points for APR. Just in the last year, 1,220 former athletes have taken advantage of that.
HBCUs continue to be a source of concern, however. Though the 374 HBCUs have steadily increased their overall APR averages in the last decade, they still lag 31 APR points behind the rest of Division I in the 2011-12 measurement.
"A lot of them have as their mission to provide college opportunities for first-generation students who come from very modest backgrounds financially, so if you are asking me do I think should I change their missions? I think not," said University of Hartford president Walt Harrison, who chairs the NCAA committee on academic performance. "There's a real place for those institutions, so I wouldn't criticize them at all for their fidelity to their mission. There's an honest commitment by all of us to provide more resources to help them achieve their mission."
All Southern University athletics programs, including the school’s first place men’s and women’s basketball teams, are currently banned from postseason play pending an NCAA investigation into the academic progress rates of student-athletes.
The ban is effective immediately, and in order to have it lifted Southern must review and resubmit all Academic Progress Rates and Graduate Success Rates to the NCAA dating to 2009. The NCAA will then either verify the data that was previously submitted or give the university an opportunity to make corrections to that data.
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