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March 4, 2005 > News > Rice fifth in Division I-A in new NCAA academic statistic

Rice fifth in Division I-A in new NCAA academic statistic

By Jonathan Yardley | Thresher Editorial Staff

Rice ranks fifth among Division I-A schools on a new scale that measures the academic advancement of student-athletes, according to data released Monday by the NCAA.

The NCAA statistic, Academic Progress Rate, measures each team based on its academic eligibility and retention rate for scholarship student-athletes. A team can earn two points per semester for each scholarship student-athlete — one point if the student-athlete is academically eligible and an additional point if the athlete remains enrolled. The APR is calculated by dividing total points by possible points and multiplying by 1,000.

Beginning next year, teams with a two-year average below 925 will be subject to immediate penalties, losing that player’s scholarship for one year, although a team cannot lose more than 10 percent of its scholarships this way. This year’s scores apply to the 2003-‘04 academic year, but the statistic will soon reflect four-year averages.

Rice teams averaged 981, well above the national Division I-A average of 944. The men’s basketball team was closest to the 925 threshold, scoring 931. The baseball and women’s tennis teams both scored 947, while the football team scored 979. Seven of twelve varsity teams had perfect scores of 1,000.

Assistant Athletic Director for NCAA Compliance Jason Gray said he does not expect the new regulations to affect Rice.

“With the numbers I’ve seen, and where we are going to be in the future, I don’t see it affecting us,” Gray said. “Where I could see it affecting us would be smaller teams like golf or tennis where there are only 10-13 people. If one person leaves for whatever reason, they could fall under that 925 score.”

The APR will force coaches to recruit more academically sound players, Gray said.

“It’s controlling the one aspect that’s going to get most coaches’ attention right off — scholarships,” Gray said.

Men’s basketball Head Coach Willis Wilson (Will Rice ‘82) said he is in favor of the system but thinks it could be improved.

“It’s something that needs to take place — monitoring progress of student-athletes,” Wilson said. “Progress toward a degree is important for all students. It is an opportunity for the NCAA to show a level of accountability. I get a little bit concerned … because it’s easy to identify problems. It is much, much more difficult to deal with problems.”

Although his team is close to the cutoff, Wilson said he does not expect the team to have trouble meeting the required score.

“It doesn’t worry me because if you go back and look at the situation that we’ve been in, occasionally kids leave Rice,” Wilson said. “In my 10 years at Rice, for the kids that have finished their eligibility, we have one guy who has not received his degree.”

While the baseball team’s score is only 22 points above the threshold, Rice ranks in the 60th-70th percentile of baseball teams nationally.

Gray said almost all baseball scores, especially in successful programs, will be lower because many players are drafted by Major League Baseball teams and leave school before exhausting their eligibility while others transfer due to lack of playing time.

“Baseball is always going to be a little on the iffy side because of people leaving after their junior year to go to the pros,” Gray said. “We’ll always lose a couple people that theoretically we shouldn’t have because they had one more year of eligibility.”

Gray said the women’s tennis score was skewed by two departures from last year’s team, and he expects it to rebound in the future.

“As they replenish that team, their numbers will go high,” Gray said. “[Women’s tennis is] one that’s historically been for us a high academic achiever. Last year was an aberration.”

Nationally, 113 of the 234 football teams in Divisions I-A and I-AA had scores less than 925, including national champion University of Southern California.

Rice ranked fifth nationally among schools in Division I-A, behind Stanford University, the United States Naval Academy, Duke University and Rutgers University. Wilson said he was not surprised by Rice’s high rank.

“Obviously, when you look at schools that are listed in the top five, that shouldn’t surprise anybody,” Wilson said. “I remember former Stanford [men’s basketball] coach Mike Montgomery saying, ‘I get a lot of praise for kids at Stanford graduating. I have nothing to do with that — those are the type of kids that Stanford attracts.’”

Wilson said he hopes the NCAA will not punish schools for players who delay earning their degree to pursue professional sports.

“Where the APR is a little bit unfair is for a kid … who [plays professionally and] doesn’t get his degree in a six-year window, and that counts against Rice,” Wilson said. “He has an opportunity to earn substantial dollars early in his life with a chance to [earn a degree] later in his life.”

The NCAA also intends to penalize continually deficient universities, but it has not yet finalized the punishment system, which is expected to include recruiting restrictions, postseason bans and membership reevaluation.

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