Penalties on way for UCA

Brad Teague knew rebuilding the University of Central Arkansas men's basketball roster last year would leave it susceptible to further Academic Progress Rate penalties, but the athletic director hoped the Bears could win an appeal from the NCAA.

That didn't happen this year.

The NCAA released its annual APR scores Wednesday, and UCA men's basketball team's score was so low that it will endure another season of postseason ineligibility.

The Bears received a multi-year score of 847 over the past four years and a 696 for the 2013-2014 academic year. The NCAA benchmark is 930 for multi-year scores.

The APR tracks retention rates for each athletic program, and low scores can produce penalties that include limited practice time, postseason ineligibility and a reduction in games. UCA was hit with all three of those penalties.

In addition to the postseason ban, which includes the NCAA and the Southland tournaments, UCA's in-season practice time will be reduced to 16 hours over five days, offseason practice will be cut to four hours per week, and UCA will be forced to eliminate three games from its schedule.

Teague said the games that will be missed are still being decided, but they will be nonconference games against "similar-sized schools" and series with Arkansas State and UALR will not be altered.

Teague was made aware of the figures before Wednesday but was surprised that a waiver and the school's appeal of the denied waiver did not provide relief from penalties. Before Pennell was hired last March, UCA decided not to renew the scholarships of 11 players, citing their poor academic track record, while knowing that the departures would hurt future APR scores.

"We did what we did intentionally," Teague said Wednesday. "We hoped that the NCAA would see that, give us a waiver, and they decided not to give us a waiver. So we are where we are, and hopefully next year we will get the waiver."

The process began for Teague last fall when in October he filed an appeal on the basis that UCA's housecleaning following the three-year coaching tenure of Corliss Williamson and another year under Clarence Finley showed that the school desired more academically qualified athletes.

That waiver was denied in December and an appeal was filed in January, based in part on the academic performance of the team that Pennell had recruited. Pennell said the UCA men's basketball team had a 3.0 grade-point average last fall after the 2013-2014 team accumulated a 1.8 GPA in the spring of 2014, the last semester for the players recruited largely by Williamson.

Teague said the NCAA told him that UCA's data wasn't enough to prove that UCA "had turned it around."

"It's obvious we didn't get rid of them to get better basketball players because we were [2-27]," Teague said. "We didn't wipe the slate clean because we thought we needed players. We needed better academically qualified students. That's why we wiped the slate clean. That was our point."

Teague said UCA is prepared to file an appeal to avoid another penalty when next year's scores are announced, and he expects it will be easier to convince the NCAA this time. By that time, UCA will have three semesters of academic data with its current team.

If UCA is denied the appeal, it should be fine the following year, Teague said. UCA is set to earn 1,000 points toward its APR for 2014-2015, the most a program can receive. That would make a 940 two-year score attainable, which allows programs with four-year scores of under 930 to avoid postseason bans.

Junior forward Joel Fiegler was the only UCA player to leave the program after this season, but Teague said UCA did not lose the retention point because his GPA was better than 2.6.

"Unfortunately, this is just a part of college athletics," Pennell said. "Unfortunately, we are paying the price for somebody else and that's OK. We'll deal with it. We knew that coming here. In the meantime we have to get our team better and get it right."

No Arkansas State or UALR programs received APR penalties. Nor did any programs at Arkansas-Pine Bluff, meaning for the first time since 2012 all of its teams will be eligible for postseason play.

UAPB's football team was ineligible because of APR scores last year, which came after its men's basketball program was ineligible in 2013 and 2014. Football, men's and women's basketball, and baseball were all ineligible for NCAA and Southwestern Athletic Conference tournaments last year because of NCAA sanctions stemming from a certification issue.

UAPB football's multi-year score was 916, below the normal benchmark but above the 910 requirement for schools the NCAA classifies as "limited-resource institutions," and avoided penalty.

"It is a relief and something that is expected," UAPB Athletic Director Lonza Hardy said. "We've been working from Day 1 to put some programs in place in our academic support area and bringing kids into our program that we know are bringing expectations to handle things academically."

Sports on 05/28/2015