Let’s be honest. Do you REALLY care that Indiana had
seven teams with perfect Academic Progress Report (APR) scores of 1,0000, or
would you rather contemplate next season’s basketball possibilities?
You should care, you know. A lot. You don’t want the
Hoosiers to ever experience what Connecticut men’s basketball is facing with a
one-season NCAA tourney ban because of its low APR scores.
Or, closer to home, a return of the academic carnage from
the Mike Davis-Kelvin Sampson reign of error.
It doesn’t figure to ever be a problem under basketball
coach Tom Crean. Not only does he have the Hoosiers positioned for a NCAA title
run, but he also has helped them post two straight 1,000 APR scores.
You’d better believe that matters.
Yes, you can thrive on the court and in the classroom,
something Connecticut is struggling to achieve. IU’s academic performance is
especially impressive when you consider the mess Crean inherited when he got
the job.
The men’s basketball team’s APR score this year is a 952,
which is actually the lowest of any of IU’s sports. The reason is simple -- the
Hoosiers had a four-year total of 866 in Sampson’s last season (capped by a
miserable one-year number of 811 in 2007-2008), then went 975, 1,000 and 1,000
under Crean.
It’s amazing what a quality coach and a quality person
can do.
The NCAA had publicly reprimanded IU for posting
four-year scores of less than 900 in three of first four years it kept track of
APR. That 811 score from 2008 -– which cost Crean two scholarships in his first
season -- is still affecting the basketball APR numbers.
Starting next season, it won’t. The last of the Sampson
consequences will be gone.
A big part of the academic improvement was the hiring of
academic adviser Marni Mooney. She deals only with the men’s basketball program
and keeps up with every assignment and test of every player.
If somebody does well, she knows it. If somebody messes
up or misses a class, she knows that, too. She quickly lets Crean know, who
isn’t shy about addressing it with the player.
Along with this comes an emphasis on early graduation.
Tom Pritchard and Matt Roth needed three years to earn a bachelor degree, then
got their master’s degree in one. Jordan Hulls and Derek Elston earned their
bachelor’s degrees in three years, and will spend their final college season
working on their master’s. Christian Watford and Maurice Creek are set to
graduate in December, which would be 3½ years.
Crean isn’t alone in this academic success at IU. Men’s
cross country, men’s golf, men’s swimming and diving, women’s swimming and
diving, women's tennis and women’s water polo all recorded a 1,000 APR for the
2010-11 academic year.
Also, men’s golf, women’s tennis, men’s track and women’s
track all have the top multi-year scores among their peers in the Big Ten.
And then baseball, men’s golf and women’s tennis were
honored for ranking in the top 10 percent in the country in their sports.
“I want to congratulate our student-athletes, coaches and
staff for embracing this high priority for our department,” athletic director
Fred Glass said in a university release. “These are successes of which all of
Hoosier Nation should be proud of.”
What is the APR? According to an IU release, it’s a
real-time measure of eligibility and retention of athletes competing on every
Division I team. The APR is based on a multi-year rate that, for this year,
averages the scores of the 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons.
Teams need to average at least a 900 out of a possible
1,000 score. That averages to a graduation rate of 50 percent. If not, they can
face sanctions including a ban on postseason participation.
IU football, by the way, had a score of 964.
IU football, by the way, had a score of 964.
*****
This likely won’t affect Indiana much, but the powers
that be in college football have finally seen the light and reached consensus
on a playoff instead of maintaining the abomination that is the BCS.
Conference commissioners, plus Notre Dame, met in Chicago
worked out most of a plan for a four-team playoff system. Teams would be chosen
by a selection committee similar to the NCAA basketball tourney with an
emphasis, but not a mandate, on picking conference champions.
If everything gets finalized and passed, it would go into
effect in 2014.
This is a big step for a group that resisted a playoff
for so long. That includes Big Ten officials, whose infatuation with the bowl
system and long-standing lucrative arrangement with the Rose Bowl made then
shoot down playoff proposals at every turn.
No more.
Now, an eight-team playoff would have been better, and it
might eventually get to that, but that’s another battle for another day.
Sure, it would be nice if Indiana could some day get into
the playoff mix. The odds on that happening are long at best. Coach Kevin
Wilson is trying to turn the Hoosiers’ perennially struggling program around,
and last year’s 1-11 debut season wasn’t a ringing endorsement of his ability
to do it.
But IU seemed better in the spring. You’d like to think a
year in Wilson’s system, plus the natural maturation process and all the hard
work on player development, will pay off. That maybe some day in the not too
distant future the Hoosiers could make a football jump the way they did in
basketball last season.
Hey, it’s the off-season. Anything is possible now.
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