Fifteen CU Teams Receive APR Passing Grades

BOULDER - The University of Colorado Academic Progress Rate (APR) report based on information for the four year period between 2004-05 and 2007-08 supplied to the NCAA shows that nine of its programs improved upon their scores from the previous year but, as school officials expected, also resulted in the men's basketball program being penalized one scholarship.

The NCAA issued its annual report Wednesday afternoon.

The men's basketball penalty was a contemporaneous one that resulted in a one-year reduction in scholarships from 13 to 12, but was already taken earlier this athletic year; it was for a team member who left the university ineligible at the end of the 2007-08 school year. Last year, the program received an "Occasion 1" historical penalty (a public reprimand and required development of an APR improvement plan), but there is no additional "Occasion 2" historical penalty this year, as the team has shown tremendous improvement over last year's scores.

The multi-year score for the men's basketball program was 900, up from 873 last year, but still below the 925 bench mark established by the NCAA.

Failure to achieve a multi-year score of 900 first results in a "historical penalty" amounting to a public reprimand, which CU received last year, and a requirement to submit an academic improvement plan to the NCAA. Any subsequent historical penalties result in scholarship reductions and restrictions on practice time.

Nationally, 104 schools were penalized with scholarship reductions in one or more sports, including 27 men's basketball programs. Several notable schools lost two scholarships: Ball State, Georgia Tech, Indiana, Ohio State, Pepperdine and San Francisco; Auburn, Oral Roberts, Purdue and Tennessee join CU in those penalized one.

Six CU programs earned a perfect 1000 score for the 2007-08 annual report, women's basketball, women's golf, men's and women's skiing, tennis and volleyball; the women's skiing and tennis teams achieved perfection for the second straight year. Multi-year cumulative scores of 1000 have dwindled as it has become increasingly difficult for a program to maintain that perfect grade as time passes; some attrition is considered natural over the course of multiple years. Overall, nine programs improved upon, with three others matching, their 2006-07 scores. One of those that did not improve, men's golf, had a perfect score a year ago but still posted an excellent number.

Women's golf had the largest increase of 94 points followed by women's basketball with a 54-point improvement, with both programs registering a perfect 1000. Football was next, up 47 points (to 935), also maintaining its 929 multi-year number.

A total of 177 programs received some kind of sanction, including 43 Division I men's basketball teams. Two other Big 12 Conference schools suffered scholarship losses, Oklahoma State (women's basketball) and Texas A & M (men's swimming).

For the fifth consecutive year all of CU's other 15 programs are in good standing overall and not subject to any penalties.

To be removed from the historical penalty probation, a program needs three consecutive years of 900 or higher on the multi-year APR score; if an institution incurs another failing score while on probation, it would be subject up to 10 percent in scholarship losses, with the penalties increasing with each consecutive year of non-compliance. Restrictions can also be placed on practice time.

"We are all proud of our student-athletes, our coaches and our dedicated staff in academics, it's a true team effort that creates this success," CU athletic director Mike Bohn said. ""The overall grade point average of the department was the best in the 12-plus years the information has been tracked, and continuing to invest in our student-athletes being successful is our number one priority."

As far as the only real negative in the report, Bohn pointed out that at this stage, it's becoming a positive.

"(Coach) Jeff Bzdelik participated in developing the (improvement) plan, and we said a year ago that all indications were that the program was headed in the right direction," he said. "His plan continues to progress as designed, and he has addressed the issues that he inherited and has the program back on solid academic footing. The best indicator of that is the men's basketball program won the most improved GPA honor for a team." The men's aggregate number rose 0.318 (to 2.718) over the last two semesters, the largest jump since this award was created in the late 1990s.

Points are deducted for student-athletes who record either "0-for-2's," those who have left school, quit or transferred with ineligible status, and "1-for 2's," for athletes who leave school eligible ("1-for-1" should they transfer to another institution with a GPA greater than 2.6) or who become ineligible but are retained.

No other CU program had a 2007-08 APR score below 900. Only women's indoor and outdoor track had a one-year APR score between 900 and 925.

The Division I Board of Directors set cut scores of 925 and 900 (out of 1000) as a threshold for teams to meet or face possible immediate contemporaneous and historical sanctions. An APR of 925 translates to approximately a 60 percent graduation success rate (GSR) and an APR of 900 translates to approximately a 50 percent GSR.

Now five years into the APR report card system, numbers have continued to settle down statistically as program histories take firmer roots. The NCAA instituted the APR in 2004, with member schools supplying information first for the 2003-04 academic year for an initial look at how schools fared across the country. This is the first time one year's data (2003-04) is thrown out, there will now perennially be four years to analyze.

When looking at the CU four-year numbers between 2003-04 and 2006-07 compared to the last period, 2004-05 through 2007-08, nine programs improved their number and two others matched it. The five that didn't increase their score only dropped between 1 and 9 points and own multi-year scores of 951 or better.

The NCAA does not compute overall numbers for schools, doing so only for the first two years of the report; they were deemed no longer reflective once four-year data became available.

The APR system, while complicated, can best be described as one that is based on two factors: eligibility/graduation and retention. Each student-athlete accrues 0, 1 or 2 points per semester; if he or she is in good academic standing, including on-schedule progress toward a degree, and if they are enrolled, they receive two points; if they are one and not the other, they earn a single point, and if neither, zero. It should be noted that APR data are only collected for team members on athletic scholarship.

For example, if a team was comprised of 20 student-athletes, and all 20 were in good academic standing and returned to school the next semester, the team's semester APR would be 1000 (40 out of a 40 possible points). The next semester, if two became ineligible, one left school and one stayed, and the other 18 remained in good standing, the semester APR would be 925 (37 of 40). The team's APR for the year would thus be 963 (for 77 out of 80 possible points).

The reporting covered all 16 of CU's intercollegiate sport programs; team-by-team statistical data:

Program	2004-05 APR	2005-06 APR	2006-07 APR	2007-08 APR	Four-Year APR
Program	2004-05 APR	2005-06 APR	2006-07 APR	2007-08 APR	03-07	04-08
Men's Basketball	960	885	875	884	873	900
Men's Cross Country	1000	939	964	964	964	966
Football	962	918	888	935	929	929
Men's Golf	969	952	1000	972	980	974
Men's Skiing	957	957	964	1000	969	968
Men's Indoor Track	1000	938	938	978	945	954
Men's Outdoor Track	1000	938	939	978	946	955
Women's Basketball	979	980	946	1000	957	981
Women's Cross Country	1000	932	909	948	957	954
Women's Golf	1000	917	906	1000	945	969
Women's Skiing	889	938	1000	1000	942	954
Women's Soccer	971	984	977	937	964	966
Women's Tennis	964	967	1000	1000	959	984
Women's Indoor Track	1000	940	940	915	959	951
Women's Outdoor Track	1000	940	960	915	960	951
Women's Volleyball	1000	960	980	1000	980	980

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