Friar fans will remember the controversy surrounding an Associated Press article from March titled “Study: 8 teams fall below standard”. The Academic Progress Rate or APR as it is more commonly known, is a concept that can make people’s heads spin. The quick and dirty explanation of APR is:
Every player on a basketball scholarship is eligible for 2 APR points each semester. 1 point is given for eligibility and 1 point is given for retention. To calculate the APR for a specific season, you add up all the points earned, divide them by the potential points then multiply by 1000. Ex: Total points available for a year is 52. 1 player is ineligible each semester so the points earned is 50. 50/52=0.961 and multiply by 1000 to get a whole number of 961.
There are exceptions to the 2 points per semester including a player leaving early to play professionally or a player transferring with a GPA of 2.6 or higher but the above is the basics.
The news today officially confirms what Providence College Athletic Director, Bob Driscoll, told everyone after the AP story was published: Providence’s APR is just fine. In fact, it’s exactly what Driscoll said it would be – 947.
The NCAA released the 2012-13 APR scores for all Division 1 basketball teams today. As Bob Driscoll indicated, the Friars’ APR is a above board. The rules for this upcoming season are that you have to either have a multi-year APR score of 930 or a most recent two year average of 940. PC clearly is eligible with their multi-year score being 947. Ed Cooley has had to pick up the pieces from the Keno Davis era so it should be noted that of this multi-year average, Cooley has only been at PC for 2 of the 4 years reported.
There were no real notable schools that will face a postseason ban. The schools who won’t be eligible to compete in the postseason in 2014-15 are: Alabama State University, Appalachian State University, Florida A&M University, Houston Baptist University, Lamar University, San Jose State University, University of Central Arkansas, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Despite no notable high major schools on the list, John Infante gave a list of 7 power conference schools that have some concerns with their APR and one bad year could put their postseason eligibility in jeopardy. His article mentions former Big East members UConn and Syracuse along with a team that has been in the news of late for negative reason in Oregon. It’s worth the read and if you are interested click here.
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