USF Gets High Score On APR

[S p e n c e]

USF Gets High Score On APR

By BRETT McMURPHY bmcmurphy@tampatrib.com

Published: Feb 23, 2005

TAMPA - South Florida received the NCAA's initial Academic Progress Rates (APR) and passed with flying colors.

The Bulls had an overall score of 976 out of a possible 1,000 points for the 2003-04 school year - easily more than the 925 required to avoid NCAA penalties.

Nine of USF's athletic teams - men's basketball, men's cross country, men's golf, men's tennis, women's cross country, women's golf, softball, women's soccer and women's outdoor track - received perfect scores of 1,000.

USF associate athletic director Phyliss LaBaw said she wasn't surprised the Bulls scored so high.

``Based upon the data we needed to provide them, I thought we would do fairly well,'' LaBaw said.

USF's 976 average exceeded the 948 average of all 320-plus Division I schools.

The APR rewards eligibility, retention and graduation and penalizes academically under-performing teams.

It's a real-time snapshot of every team's academic performance at a given time. An APR score of 925 is what teams must meet to avoid penalties.

The APR is calculated by allocating points for eligibility and retention - two factors that research identifies as the best indicators of graduation. Each player on a given roster earns a maximum of two points per term, one for being academically eligible and one for staying with the institution. A team's APR is the total points of a team's roster at a given time divided by the total points possible. Since this results in a decimal number, the Committee on Academic Performance decided to multiply it by 1,000 for ease of reference.

Thus, a raw APR score of .925 translates into the 925 that will become the standard terminology.

The next set of preliminary APR data (which will include the 2003-04 and 2004-05 reports) will be released by September. Those two years of data will determine the first set of contemporaneous penalties. Institutions will be notified if they are subject to such penalties by December.

http://sports.tbo.com/sports/MGBBU0XYI5E.html

[Papa_Bull]

Another article from SPT:

Colleges

USF, FSU okay in academic report

By GREG AUMAN and BRIAN LANDMAN

Published February 23, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The NCAA has sent all of its colleges a new academic progress report, and South Florida and Florida State are encouraged by their scores, obtained by the Times through a public records request.

USF's Academic Progress Rate score, 976 out of a possible 1,000, based on overall athlete eligibility, retention and graduation during the 2003-04 school year, is well ahead of the national average of 948, and all 17 Bulls sports scored above the threshold of 925. Programs below that level when scores are calculated next year will receive penalties such as loss of scholarships.

"I think, hopefully, that it's indicative of the commitment this institution and this athletic department have made in stressing the importance of academics to our student-athletes," athletic director Doug Woolard said.

USF has traditionally ranked second academically in Conference USA, trailing only Saint Louis, a private and significantly smaller school. The Bulls, who recorded the highest academic score possible in nine of 17 sports, will have a better sense of how they compare nationally when the NCAA releases scores for all schools Monday.

At Florida State, the school's overall score was 959, and the only sport below the 925 line was baseball, where the Seminoles' APR was 881. If that score doesn't improve next year, the baseball team would lose 1.1 scholarships or about $12,000 for the following school year.

"That's very significant because they only have 11.7 (equivalent scholarships)," athletic director Dave Hart said. "The consequences are very real. But I think we have to look at the formula and determine whether that formula is as fair as it can be."

No one at FSU was surprised by the baseball news because the sport had the lowest national average (922) of any sport. Unlike football and basketball, baseball players can transfer to other Division I programs and play immediately, and even if a player leaves a school in good academic standing, his departure counts against a team's score. Baseball programs lose points when players opt for the baseball draft after their junior year.

Despite requests from the Times, University of Florida officials declined to release their academic report Tuesday.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/02/23/Sports/USF__FSU_okay_in_acad.shtml

[Markeymark]

The entire report for all schools will be released by the NCAA before the end of the month.

[ChiTownBull]

wonder why UF wont release their scores?

[Velcro]

because they suck!  ;D

[Papa_Bull]

Miami got a reprieve in one sport they were flunking.

Posted on Tue, Feb. 22, 2005

NCAA

UM athletics passes initial academic test

The NCAA will make public the status of every university's Academic Progress Rate on Monday, with UM already knowing it has fared well.

BY SUSAN MILLER DEGNAN

sdegnan@herald.com

As part of a sweeping academic-reform package that ultimately will result in academically deficient teams losing scholarships, the NCAA on Monday will unveil to the public perhaps the most important scores of the year.

And the universities -- including Miami, Florida State, Florida, Florida International and Florida Atlantic -- already know the outcome of the new Academic Progress Rate point system that measures the retention and graduation rates of each team.

''We're in very good shape,'' said University of Miami athletic director Paul Dee, who had every one of the 18 intercollegiate teams he oversees meet the academic requirements. However, one undisclosed team (not football, according to Dee) originally failed but was saved by the NCAA's addition last week of a ''confidence boundary'' safe zone. Nine of UM's teams scored perfect marks, Dee said.

Florida State had one undisclosed team fail and four of 19 end up with perfect scores, said compliance director Brian Battle, with FIU nailing 11 of 17 teams in the win column and still reviewing which of the other six, if any, is in the safe zone. The Gators declined to divulge any information until it's publicly released, and the FAU Owls also declined, though Mike Allen, their director of academic services, said he was pleased.

The Division I schools' presidents were notified of their scores late last week, with many of the athletic department administrators learning those results Monday.

''Everyone appreciates the NCAA's attempt to put a positive focus on academic achievement and graduation,'' Allen said. ``It's just a very complex thing to try to quantify. Ultimately, there will be positive effects, but there will be some misconceptions early on about how to interpret everything.''

Come Monday, there will be winners and losers across the board.

''Is it a good thing? I consider it to be like the Bowl Championship Series,'' said Battle, who said FSU was ``OK, but we don't want to get too excited.

``This is what we have to deal with, what we have to play within. The BCS is tweaked every year, so we hope to have this tweaked, too. My concern is we are holding our student-athletes to higher standards than the general student body.

``This is going to cause some issues with some schools when it comes out. It'll push the envelope.''

HALFWAY STATUS

In the new system, an athlete receives one point per semester for remaining eligible and another point for staying in school. The newest point standings, calculated on a team-by-team basis, only measure data for the 2003-04 school year. That gives schools an idea of where they stand halfway through a two-year period, at the end of which schools could be penalized with scholarship losses in 2005-06 should their Academic Progress Rate (APR) point total fall below the cutoff of 925.

A perfect score translates to 1,000 points.

Eventually, the NCAA will use a four-year rolling average to determine how teams fare, which is why after only one year of data, the ''confidence boundary'' safe zone was instituted last week.

''Simply put, the APR is the real-time snapshot of every team's academic performance at a given time,'' wrote Gary T. Brown in the NCAA News last week; and teams below 925 will not be able to replace for one year the grants-in-aid of players who left as academic casualties during the previous academic year.

``Right now the only context that can be applied to the APR cut is that a 925 equates to a 50 percent graduation rate [under current federally mandated methodology].''

Teams lose points if players leave early to turn pro, transfer, drop out or dip below the minimum grade-point average to stay eligible. No more than 10 percent of a team's scholarship limit can be eliminated in one year.

Scholarship losses would be for one year at a time, but schools could face more severe sanctions -- recruiting restrictions and postseason bans among them -- if academic numbers didn't improve.

ISSUES WITH BASEBALL

Baseball, it seems, is the sport that will become most controversial in this formula, as top teams lose many of their players to the draft after three years, and many others transfer because the sport doesn't require players to sit out a year as with football and basketball.

And even if a baseball player is in good academic standing, if he leaves early for the draft and has one course left to complete in the summer that he would have had he stayed, the team is penalized two points.

''Overall, I'm very pleased with the outcome of Florida State's athletics programs,'' Battle said. ``But obviously it's a system that still needs to have some things addressed to be a better accurate picture of a student-athlete's academic success. Baseball is one of our main concerns, as are basketball and football. There still needs to be some discussions about the individuals who leave in good academic standing. Our thing is, you're penalizing kids for being good athletes when someone is throwing millions of dollars at them. If they leave and they're not in good academic standing, then we should be penalized.''

FIU athletic director Rick Mello reiterated Battle's concerns: ''First of all, I think this reform is a step in the right direction as far as measuring some form of academic accountability,'' Mello said. ``But people need to know this also measures retention as well as it does academics, and you're penalized for kids leaving in good academic standing.''

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/sports/colleges/university_of_miami/10959659.htm

[ChiTownBull]

because they suck!  ;D

thats what i'm hoping  ;D

[bulls96go]

it would be nice to be the leader in florida, cusa and the BE!

[dabull80]

Teams lose points if players leave early to turn pro, transfer, drop out or dip below the minimum grade-point average to stay eligible

This seems very unfair to me.  Why should a team be penalized if a kid turns pro ?  if his/her acedemics were in order when they go why should the school be penalized ?  This is wrong.  Even worse is if someone transfers.  A coach or the school adminstration has very little control over this and the transfer may have a good reason.  Bad grades then penalize but I just don't see this as being a fair barometer for schools.  I am guessing but teams like Duke and NC could be in serious trouble. They lose players all the time to the pros.

[Guest Sprtsfn627]

They have to figure out a way to let kids go pro without hurting the school's academic standing.  Otherwise, there will be a huge uproar against the entire system, when only one piece needs fixed.