IU fails to make grade in NCAA opinion

The NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate found the IU men’s basketball program well below the national average, ranked 325 out of 341 Division I schools.
 
The Hoosiers received an APR score of 866, almost 70 points below the national average of 933 and also under the NCAA’s minimum limit of 925.

According to the report released Wednesday, the basketball program received a pair of penalties – a reduction of scholarships to 11 (served this season) and a public notice. Should the program’s performance in the APR continue to slip, further penalties could result.

In a press release, IU Athletics Director Fred Glass addressed the notice and threw full support behind coach Tom Crean’s efforts to raise the academic profile of his beleaguered program.

“We take this public notice very seriously,” Glass said in the release. “The poor academic performance for which we’re being cited all occurred under two coaches who are no longer at IU. We are confident that under coach Tom Crean’s leadership and commitment to academics, responsibility, and character, we will soon be able to put our previous academic issues fully in the past.”

The release also cited Crean’s APR successes at Marquette, where the Golden Eagles achieved an APR score of 970 in the same report, which reflected Crean’s last year in Milwaukee.

The APR score is tabulated by analyzing a program’s retention of players as well as said players’ academic performance, so this score is based on each of the last four IU basketball seasons.

Graduating players garners APR points, but players leaving the program early or not in good academic standing, or both, can negatively affect that score.

The scholarship penalty, which essentially reduces the number of scholarships the program can hand out from 13 to 11, was served this year, as IU expected to have a low score based on the academic trouble and multiple departures surrounding the end of Kelvin Sampson’s tenure.

No other IU program finished lower than 925. Public institutions as a whole averaged one point less than that limit.