Two UB teams fall short academically

Earlier this month, the NCAA released a new method of keeping track of academics within its participating athletic programs.

The Academic Progress Rate is a tool that the NCAA is using to ensure that athletic programs have more accountability for students who leave teams because they are no longer academically eligible.

Two UB teams, the football team and women's basketball team, fell short of the APR's "confidence boundary," meaning they must raise their performance in future years or risk penalties.

This is the first year that this new rule is being applied to the Division I universities and because of that, there isn't enough data yet for the NCAA to start giving out penalties, which in the future may include a loss of scholarships.

"It's the first time through it and there aren't any penalties right now," said UB's assistant athletic director for communications, Paul Vecchio. "It's been an educational process for us."

The APR gives scores based on the academic performances of student-athletes. The NCAA has set the mark for minimal performance at 925. Currently, 12 of UB's 20 sports teams scored above the 925 mark. Of the eight teams that fell below the mark, six of them fell within the NCAA's confidence boundary. That boundary allows for the assumed mark that certain teams will be reaching when four years of data are available to study.

Though it is a new system of ranking student-athletes and there are not yet any penalties that will be given out, UB's athletics programs do have something to be worried about.

The poor showing of the football and women's basketball teams will lead UB to focus on improving the academic performance of those teams.

"I think more than anything, with any new system or program that's put in place, hopefully it has provided a baseline of knowledge so we can understand the system and we can do a better job of helping to educate our coaches and kids in being judged by the NCAA endeavor," said Vecchio.

While there are no scholarships being lost for teams this year, UB has to raise its performance soon.

"Right now, as it stands (NCAA officials) will meet again this summer and talk about whether there are any adjustments that need to be made following the first set of rankings," said Vecchio. "But if there are no changes in the timeline, after the next year there will be penalties for the programs that still fall under 925, which is probably going to be a moving target."

The other six UB teams that fell below the 925 mark are the baseball team, the men's basketball team, the men's soccer team, the men's swimming team, the men's outdoor track team, and the wrestling team.

"Those are the ones that fall within the confidence boundaries," said Vecchio.

The confidence boundaries are an adjustment on team's APRs in order to account for the fact that only one year is being included in the rating.

There have been other attempts by the NCAA to make sure that academics remain an important part of its member institutions. The biggest difference with this plan is that it accounts for student-athletes who leave teams because they become academically ineligible.

"Obviously, performance in the classroom is the biggest thing, but where a lot of these penalties come from is where kids leave programs and are not eligible when they leave programs, they call those 'two and 0's,' someone who's at a school for two or less years and leaves not eligible academically," said Vecchio.

There are, however, places where the athletic department can get involved and take steps to ensure that each team's APR is improved.

"We have to focus on kids that may not be as much of an academic risk, now that there's a score being kept on a national level," said Vecchio. "The NCAA didn't want programs to be able to let kids go that easily."

According to Vecchio, the NCAA is taking steps to make sure that programs aren't taking in as many high-risk players, academically. This will be useful in keeping up the integrity of educational institutions.

"What I think the NCAA is trying to do, is they want coaches to look at the high-risk kids that they're recruiting," said Vecchio. "Coaches are going to have to rethink, if the standard stays in place, the high-risk players they recruit."

At this point, UB's teams have not yet planned any big changes to recruiting practices, because of the lack of data, and also because of the fact that scholarships are not being taken away at this point.

"It's probably too early to say whether it's going to affect recruiting because there are no penalties being handed out," said Vecchio. "I think a lot of programs, including ours, are going to say that we're trying to get a handle on how we're going to improve our academic standing."

Though a few teams fell below the NCAA's standards here at UB, the athletics department is not worried about the student-athletes not performing up to expectations in their classes. As of the fall semester, UB student-athletes have a combined GPA of 3.003, which is better than the overall undergraduate population's GPA of 2.96.

The possible penalties for teams falling below the 925 rating is the loss of one scholarship per student who left the school because of academic failure or poor academic standing. This penalty will begin to apply in December of 2005.