UNLV, San Jose State biggest names on NCAA banned list

INDIANAPOLIS — Thirty-six Division I athletic teams will face postseason bans next fall because of subpar scores on the NCAA’s annual Academic Progress Rate.

Seventeen of those teams play either football or men’s basketball.

The biggest names on the list — UNLV football and San Jose State men’s basketball — had been previously reported.

Last month, the NCAA rejected an appeal by UNLV, meaning the football team, coming off its first bowl appearance in 13 years, will not be eligible to participate in the postseason next season, be it in a bowl or the Mountain West title game.

UNLV needed to average an APR score of at least 930 over the past four years but only reached 925. In addition to the postseason ban, UNLV will lose four practice hours per week that instead must be devoted to academics, and can only participate in five days of football-type activities instead of six.

Last year, 17 teams in all faced postseason bans because of poor academic results.

The APR is billed as a real-time measurement for all teams and is based on a points system that rewards athletes for staying academically eligible and staying in school.

This year’s four-year measurements, released Wednesday, cover the period from 2009-10 through 2012-13. The report shows a two-point improvement among all athletes, going from 974 to 976. A perfect score is 1,000.

Of the four most visible sports, men’s basketball made the greatest improvement, going from 952 to 957.

“Our goal in creating the APR and in academic reform is to ensure that student-athletes are prepared for their future after college,” said Walter Harrison, president at the University of Hartford and the chairman of the NCAA’s committee on academic performance.

“Every time these numbers rise, it means something to me. It’s more than just a higher number. It’s real people achieving their degrees, which helps them be more successful in life.”

Historically, low-resource colleges and universities have produced lower scores than schools that bring in the most money. The most recent numbers reflect a similar trend.

Teams that play in the five power conferences — the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference — had a two-point overall increase over the previous year, 980 to 982. That’s up four points from two years ago, and the number of teams in those leagues falling short of the 930 cutline, which triggers penalties, dropped from 6 percent in 2010-11 to 5 percent in 2011-12 to 3 percent in 2012-13.

While teams in other Division I leagues showed a one-point increase from 2011-12, from 976 to 977, and a four-point improvement from two years ago, 8 percent of those teams still have not reached the score of 930 — no change from 2011-12.

Of the 17 football and men’s basketball teams facing the harshest sanctions, eight are historically black colleges — including the only two schools to face postseason bans in both sports: Alabama State and Florida A&M.

The report also shows transfers in Division I men’s basketball have increased significantly over each of the past four years. The percentage of players going from one four-year school to another jumped from 10.0 in 2009-10 to 10.6 percent in 2010-11 to 11.9 percent in 2011-12 and now sits at 13. 1 percent.

The percentage of college football players changing four-year schools was just 3.7 percent in 2012-13.