After his team beat UNC Asheville in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on March 15, Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim took to the microphone at the postgame press conference to take on one more opponent – a member of the U.S. president’s Cabinet.

Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education, called out Boeheim on March 14 in a conference call with reporters about the graduation rates of NCAA Tournament teams. A story with Duncan’s comments ran in the March 15 edition of USA Today and was accompanied by a column that criticized Syracuse for the academic performance within the men’s basketball program.

In October, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors voted to set the minimum academic standard for postseason participation as a 930 academic progress rate, which equates to graduating about half of a team’s players. Teams must have a two-year average score of 930 or a four-year average of 900 to participate in postseason competition in 2012-13 and 2013-14.

The Connecticut men’s basketball team has been ruled ineligible for the 2013 NCAA Tournament, the first major basketball program to fall victim to the new APR rules.

With the most recent APR scores – for the academic year 2010-11 – set to be released in late May or early June, it’s only a matter of time before the next basketball Goliath meets the same fate. In 2014-15, teams must have a four-year average of 930 or at least a 940 average for the two most recent years. In 2015-16 and beyond, teams must have a four-year average of 930 to be eligible for the postseason.

‘There was actually tremendous skepticism that the NCAA would ever raise the academic bar to be eligible for postseason glory, much less that it would act any time soon,’ Duncan said March 14. ‘In fact, one Hall of Fame basketball coach told USA Today (last year) that the proposal to require teams to be on track to graduate half their players, was, and I quote now, ‘completely nuts.”

If there was any doubt about whom that Hall of Fame basketball coach was, Boeheim made it clear during his press conference the next day.

‘I think everybody knows who the secretary of education was talking about,’ he said. ‘Is there anybody here who didn’t know who he was talking about?

‘We want every guy to graduate, and we work very hard on that. So I think it’s fair to say that I’m upset right now.’

What is APR?

In April 2004, Division I adopted the APR, which measures academic performance for all sports each academic term. Each student-athlete earns one retention point for staying in school and one eligibility point for being academically eligible. A team’s total points are then divided by the points possible, and that’s multiplied by 1,000 to calculate the APR.

In July 2005, the Committee on Academic Performance, which created and oversees the administration of the APR, voted to allow student-athletes who leave school to pursue a pro career while eligible to count as a ‘1-for-1’ rather than a ‘1-for-2.’ A ‘1-for-1’ student-athlete earns his or her school an eligibility point, but doesn’t cost it a retention point. This is opposed to a ‘0-for-2’ student-athlete, who is academically ineligible and leaves the institution.

Before the APR rules were changed in late October, the APR benchmark was at 925. Teams that scored below 925 and had a student-athlete who both failed academically and left school could lose up to 10 percent of their scholarships each year under the immediate penalty structure. Teams with an APR below 900 faced additional sanctions, increasing in severity for each consecutive year the team failed to meet the benchmark.

In October, the Board of Directors approved a new three-level penalty structure, ranging from reduced practice time to coaching suspensions, financial aid reductions and restricted NCAA membership.

Amy Perko, the executive director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, said the new APR benchmark of 930 is long overdue.

‘In athletics, coaches and athletes are trained every day to achieve goals and to reach certain expectations, and the commission felt a higher expectation needed to exist on the academic side,’ Perko said.

Of the $409 million distributed in the NCAA basketball tournaments from 2006-10, $179 million was earned by teams with APRs below 925, a Knight Commission analysis released last March found.

‘The commission believes that playing for a championship is a privilege and that the tournament and the financial rewards that accompany them should be reserved for teams that are meeting minimum academic standards,’ Perko said. 

From 2006-10, Syracuse earned $3.1 million in revenue in the tournaments, with all of the money coming while the men’s basketball team was above the 925 benchmark, according to the analysis. Connecticut made $7.1 million during those tournaments, with $4.1 million of it coming while it was under 925.

In the 2012 tournament, 13 of the teams, including Syracuse, had APRs below 930.

That means those teams would be ineligible for postseason participation when the new APR rules are fully implemented, according to a March study from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.

Champion falls victim

When the APR standards were changed in October, it became clear Connecticut wasn’t going to be eligible for the 2013 men’s basketball tournament.

The school submitted a waiver request with alternate penalties, but it was denied by the NCAA in February.

The waiver request outlines the school’s Academic Improvement Plan, which are new programs and penalties the school has implemented to improve the team’s academic standing. They include sanctions for any player who misses three or more classes during the academic year and daily checks of class work for student-athletes who have a GPA of 2.3 or lower.

Connecticut appealed the ruling, only to have it denied by the NCAA Committee on Academic Performance on April 5.

The NCAA plans to use data from the 2009-10 and 2010-11 academic years, which makes it mathematically impossible for Connecticut to be eligible for the postseason. The men’s basketball team scored 826 in 2009-10, and the score for 2010-11 will be 978 when the numbers are released this spring, said Phil Chardis, assistant director of athletic communications at Connecticut.

It would give Connecticut a two-year average of 902 and a four-year average of about 890.

Chardis said the men’s basketball team attained perfect APR eligibility and retention scores for the fall 2011 semester.

‘The only option UConn has for playing the tournament would be if they decided to use the most up-to-date data we can, which would seem to be the way it’s supposed to go,’ he said. ‘In UConn’s case, there won’t be one player on the team who was involved in those low APR scores. Those guys are long gone.’

The situation at Syracuse

For the Syracuse men’s basketball team, the APR is a recurring issue – most of the time with Duncan in the mix.

In 2008-09, the team’s APR was 865. The multiyear APR for that year, released in June 2010, was 912, as scores were averaged from the 2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09 academic years.

The score of 912, below the necessary 925 for the first time in school history, led the NCAA to dock the team two scholarships. In anticipation of the restrictions, the program took the scholarship penalty during the 2009-10 academic year, meaning the Orange had 11 players on scholarship rather than the NCAA maximum of 13.

Athletic and university officials say Jonny Flynn, Eric Devendorf and Paul Harris leaving school early for the NBA Draft caused the low APR. But student-athletes who leave to go pro while in good academic standing don’t cost their school a retention point.

In March 2011, Duncan said in a conference call with reporters that 10 of the 68 teams in that year’s NCAA tournament should have been disqualified for the poor academic performance of their players. He mentioned Syracuse as one of them.

In 2009-10, the team’s APR was 1,000, raising the multiyear APR to 928.

Duncan singled out Syracuse again this year in his March 14 conference call with reporters.

‘Basketball powerhouses in the tournament like UConn, Syracuse and Florida State and Indiana all have APRs below 930,’ Duncan said. ‘If they don’t improve, you just simply won’t see them in the tournament.’

Boeheim responded to Duncan’s comments in the press conference after the second-round UNC Asheville game.

‘I think people need to get better information,’ he said. ‘Syracuse would be eligible to play in the tournament this year. We are qualified. We are over 930. Under this year’s rules or last year’s rules, we would be eligible to play in the tournament.’

SU Athletics then released a statement to follow-up Boeheim’s comments. It said that the men’s basketball team is eligible for postseason competition under the existing rules and projects the team will meet the benchmarks for postseason play for 2012-13.

To qualify for the 2013 NCAA Tournament, Syracuse needs a two-year average of 930 or a four-year average of 900. The NCAA will use the scores from the 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 academic years.

Although the score for 2010-11 will not be released until late May or early June, the team’s score of 1,000 in 2009-10 makes it seem like a safe bet to be eligible for the 2013 tournament. To achieve a two-year average of 930, the team would need a score of 860 in 2010-11. And the only player preparing for the NBA Draft that year was senior Rick Jackson.

Beyond 2013 may not be as obvious, as one bad score could cripple the team’s ability to meet the 930 four-year average when the benchmark goes into full effect in 2015-16.

This past season, two underclassmen – Dion Waiters and Fab Melo – declared for the NBA Draft.

Pete Moore, director of athletic communications, confirmed that both Waiters and Melo are still enrolled at the university.

Melo missed three games in late January because of an academic issue and was later ruled ineligible before the start of the NCAA Tournament. 

Moore said it is unknown what the APR for 2011-12 will be, as it won’t be determined until the end of the semester when players’ academic standings for the year are finalized. This includes Waiters and Melo.

‘In terms of men’s basketball, they’re certainly aware of Fab’s and Dion’s decisions, and they are proceeding with the hopes of not falling below whatever the APR might be at that time,’ Moore said. ‘It’s not a situation where anybody would comment and say we’re really concerned about next year. That’s not the case.’

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Published on April 24, 2012 at 12:00 pm

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