LITTLE ROCK — George Ivory said he believes the postseason ban given Wednesday to his Arkansas-Pine Bluff men’s basketball team for the 2012-2013 season should be overturned.
UAPB Athletic Director Lonza Hardy said he hopes it can be, but he isn’t holding out much hope.
“It’s a possibility,” Hardy said, “but I wouldn’t put my whole bank account on it.”
UAPB was one of 10 NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams banned from the postseason for next year because of low scores in the Academic Progress Rate, which tracks graduation and retention rates over a four-year period and was released by the NCAA on Wednesday.
UAPB’s multiyear score, which included academicyears 2007-2011, dipped to 864, well below the 900 benchmark needed over four years to avoid public notice or penalty.
That means the Golden Lions, who were put on public notice when their multiyear score was 899 last year, won’t be eligible for the NCAA Tournament and, in accordance with conference rules, the Southwestern Athletic Conference Tournament.
UAPB, which had a single-year score of 880 for 2010-2011, also will be limited to 16 hours of practice over five days in a week during the season because of a score that fell to its lowest point since the NCAA began tabulating the figures in 2003-2004.
“It’s disappointing,” Ivory said.
However, Ivory said he doesn’t think his team should be penalized so harshly. He said the low scores are mostly because of paperwork errors committed when the school submitted records for last year’s scores.
Ivory said records for Dominic Moore, who was not the player named Moore who played for the 2009-2010 team, were submitted along with other errors. He said UAPB has submitted the corrected records and that he believes UAPB’s scores should be above the 900 needed to avoid penalty.
“Just because some people made some mistakes with the forms, the school and the boys shouldn’t be blamed for that,” Ivory said.
Hardy, who became UAPB’s athletic director in September, said the school wasn’t eligible to file a waiver that would allow for a changed score because the NCAA allows such waivers to be filed only for “mitigating circumstances.”
“Reporting some information that may not have been correct, that is not a mitigating circumstance,” Hardy said.
Hardy said he isn’t sure who was responsible for sending in incorrect paperwork because of turnover in UAPB’s athletic department. He said the school’s compliance department has two full-time employees.
“There are so many people that were associated with the program back in those days that are no longer around,” Hardy said. “I’m not sure ifwe would ever know or if the NCAA would ever know that.”
UAPB still submitted edited paperwork.
“We’re hoping that it can [be overturned],” Hardy said. “But if it can’t, we’re not going to stop our efforts to make sure that we move forward from this point on.”
None of UAPB’s other 16 sports were hit with penalties.
None of Arkansas’ other Division I schools were penalized.
The UALR men’s basketball team’s multiyear score was 970, one point down from a year ago. It also tied for second with Louisiana-Lafayette for the secondhighest score in the Sun Belt Conference.
UALR’s women’s basketball team had a multiyear score of 948 and a 980 score for 2010-2011.
Two years after incurring NCAA penalties for low scores, the Arkansas State men’s basketball team’s single and multiyear scores cleared benchmarks. The Red Wolves scored 978 for 2010-2011, which put Coach John Brady’s team well above the 950 average score for Division I men’s basketball programs.
The Red Wolves were docked a scholarship for the 2009-2010 season and four hours of practice time each week after earning a multiyear APR of 882 and a single-year score of 804 in 2008-2009.
ASU was spared further sanctions last year despite an 895 multiyear score afterit earned a 980 single-year score in 2009-2010 - a sign to the NCAA the program is making adequate progress and is in line with the average for the school’s student body.
ASU’s football team had a 949 single-year score and a 948 multiyear score. The scores placed the Red Wolves a single point above the Division I average and five points ahead of the average for public schools.
ASU’s women’s basketball team had the lowest scores among the school’s 13 sports, finishing the 2010-2011 academic year with a score of 933 and a multiyear score of 936. Coach Brian Boyer’s team still remained above the cut line for NCAA sanctions.
Sports, Pages 19 on 06/21/2012