The NCAA's dreaded Acedemic Progress Report was released two days ago, which means some teams are trying to find ways to handle the loss of scholarships and other penalties. If you're interested in seeing the full list of violators, here's the place for you.
Oregon State doesn't have that problem, as they squeaked through the APR with no penalties. The baseball and football teams both showed improvement from a year ago, but men's basketball plummeted 12 points.
The APR covers the 2003-2007 acedemic years. How it works is that each athlete receives one point for staying academically eligible and one point for staying in school. Each team adds up its athletes' points and divides them by the total points possible to get an APR score. For ease of reading, decimal points are dropped.
Schools must score 925 or better to avoid NCAA sanctions. Division I men's basketball and football averages, respectively, are 928 and 934.
Oregon State
Baseball: 932, +8
Men's basketball: 935, -12
Football: 926, +13
Women's basketball: 948, +8
Best score: 1,000 (women's cross country, women's outdoor track)
So this brings up an interesting topic. Does performance correlate to acedemic performance? The basketball went through a coaching change, an 0-18 Pac-10 season, the worst in Pac-10 history, and emerges 12 points lower in the APR. They're still higher than some teams in the country, but that drop is somewhat alarming.
On the other hand, the baseball team and football teams have each had successful seasons, not only this year, but the three years prior. Their academic performances remains above the bar.
Even if the Beaver basketball team doesn't improve on the court this year, we can assure that Craig Robinson will hold a high standard for his players in the classroom. As an Ivy League player and coach as well as a businessman, he knows how important that education is.
And finally, here's a look at the Pac-10 football and basketball programs:
Arizona
Men's basketball: 933, +9
Football: 902, +19
Arizona State
Men's basketball: 905, +20
Football: 933, +7
California
Men's basketball: 942, +7
Football: 967, +2
Oregon
Men's basketball: 975, +1
Football: 921, +9
Oregon State
Men's basketball: 935, -12
Football: 926, +13
Stanford
Men's basketball: 954, -1
Football: 986, +2
UCLA
Men's basketball: 968, +3
Football: 941, +10
USC
Men's basketball: 863, -19
Football: 948, +1
Washington
Men's basketball: 943, +8
Football: 948, +6
Washington State
Men's basketball: 905, +13
Football: 916, -14
GO BEAVERS!
--JB--