The UNC men’s basketball team scored 989 on the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate which basically means not only are the Heels at the top of the mountain when it comes to winning but academically the players are getting the job done.
The men’s basketball teams at Duke and North Carolina scored 989 on the APR. The three Triangle teams were the only men’s basketball teams in the ACC to receive public recognition awards from the NCAA for their high APR scores.
North Carolina’s honor comes a month after the Tar Heels won the NCAA title with a win over Michigan State in the national final in Detroit.
“It further shows for us that we’re doing things the right way and that across the board we’re pretty competitive in playing, and now this is just another measure that shows that we’re doing the right things academically,” said North Carolina sports information director Steve Kirschner.
Duke also scored a 989 and NC State posted a 995 which in the case of the latter the administration is undoubtedly very happy after all who really cares about winning as long as the money is flowing and the players are graduating. It was not all good news for the ACC. Georgia Tech lost two scholarships for having a poor APR. One has to wonder how much more Paul Hewitt can hang onto his job considering his team sucks and his players are not showing graduation progress.
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For those looking for a comprehensive list of the APRs of every conference school in baseball, basketball and football, I put together a spreadsheet of them over at YANCSSB:
http://yetanotherncstatesportsblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/complete-acc-apr-spreadsheet-for.html
How does NC State have a higher score than DUniv or UNC? Is it graduation rate or grades? Another great program accolade!
It is progress towards graduation.
I agree that Hewitt has done a poor job with strong talent. But the one and dones are really hurting him. They are not only disrupting the continuity of his program, they are killing his APR. There are lots of good reasons to avoid having more than an occasional one. Calipari can blow up the APR at Memphis because he won’t stick around long enough to suffer from the results.
I don’t know the rules, but suspect gt didn’t lose 2 scholarships because of one and doners. rather it was probably bad scolastics
Hewitt’s ineptitude (in this area) pales in comparison to Kelvin Sampson. I have several family members who are Indiana University alumni, and all have told me various stories about Sampson’s reign at IU. Basically, D.J. White and Eric Gordon had to distance themselves from several teammates because those teammates were smoking mass amounts of weed and snorting cocaine. Sampson allegedly knew about it, but didn’t even suspend the players for fear of public speculation. Another player was supposedly told (by Sampson) that it was okay to miss class because it doesn’t affect the team, but to miss practice is not acceptable. Okay, I can agree with the latter, but that bit about missing class is WAY TOO candid for me, coach.
IIRC, Lewis Clench was academically ineligible once if not twice at GT and Hewitt kept bringing him back.
If you’re Paul Hewitt and you recruit guys that you know will constantly be leaving after one or two years, it’s in your best interest to ensure that your players are on top of it in the classroom.
And Georgia Tech is arguably the toughest institution to “hide” your players in easy academic tracts, making it doubly difficult to do.
I guess I just don’t understand Hewitt’s philosophy. I could understand subjecting your team to high turnover and potentially poor APR if you’re winning, but he has zip to show for all of this. He would have been better off recruiting some top 50-100 players and keeping a team together for 4 years, as well as graduating some players. The win/loss record couldn’t have been much worse.
“He would have been better off recruiting some top 50-100 players and keeping a team together for 4 years, as well as graduating some players. The win/loss record couldn’t have been much worse.”
A lot of State fans have been saying the same thing about Sidney, except, of course, about graduation rates. So far so good in that area, obviously. He’s had some good looks at some good top-100 talent that he’s passed on to go after top-25 talent, only to miss and have to settle for guys like this 7′ Australian project we just landed.